Belief

When the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith ran for president, he wasn’t seeking further glory but a policy change in religious liberty.

Omar ibn Said was captured in Senegal at 37 and enslaved in Charleston. A devout Muslim, he later converted to the Christian faith of his enslavers. Or did he?

Although they have different beliefs, eugenicists and evangelicals have historically worked together to further a joint agenda.

Reflections on "A Love Supreme," artistic transformation, and the Black Arts Movement.

The Puritans had little tolerance for those who didn't conform to their vision of the world.

In a book and documentary series, Henry Louis Gates Jr. offers a wide-ranging tour of Black religion in America.

"The Dead are Arising" may be the best Malcolm X biography yet. But its author seems unsure of how to write about a religion outside the American mainstream.

Former followers of an evangelical “purity” movement that promoted a strict view of abstinence are grappling with aftershocks.

Its embrace of an ignominious president is forcing a long-overdue reckoning with the movement’s embrace of white supremacy and illiberal politics.

The peculiarities of how American Christianity took shape help explain believers’ vulnerability to conspiratorial thinking and misinformation.

Are the evangelicals who voted for Trump and stormed the Capitol in his defense part of the fringe of evangelicalism, or the core?

What they can teach us about what to expect.

In the 19th century, Purim became an occasion to hold parties to raise money for charities. These parties helped American Jews gain a standing among the elite.

White evangelicals have long been attracted to the conservative media's militant politics and regressive gender roles.

Nostalgia is not merely reductive; it is also productive.

How 150 years of apocalyptic agitation culminated in an insurrection.

Historian John Turner tells the story of Plymouth Colony with nuance and care.

Kevin Dann on the spiritualists of New York City and beyond.

A brief history of the Yuletide in America.

Jefferson revised the Gospels to make Jesus more reasonable, and lost the power of his story.

It was less about their asceticism and more about rejecting the world they had fled.

Perpetual outsiders, Mormons spent 200 years assimilating to a certain national ideal—only to find their country in an identity crisis.

A review of "Hot Protestants: A History of Puritanism in England and America."

Despite extensive historiography, most people are not aware that the Society of Jesus owned people.

Any effective soul-searching must take into account the history of white American Christian support for white supremacist power.

The fight between Biden and conservative Catholics will be about more than policy.

Power, plague and Christianity were closely intertwined in 17th-century New England.

In the 1960s, youth counterculture spawned Christian rock.

How a long-abandoned practice became a way for undocumented immigrants to seek protection.

The president's "1776 Commission" marks a turning point in his rhetoric.