Religion

Medieval monks used labor-saving innovations like the mill not to increase productivity, but to free up more time for what they wanted to do.

The St. Cuthbert Gospel is the earliest surviving intact European book. Some time around 698, it was slipped into the coffin of a saint.

During the Second Great Awakening of 1830, science and religion were seen as “two aspects of the same universal truth.”

Sunday mail delivery was hugely controversial in the early 19th century, inspiring one of the U.S.'s first efforts to rally public opinion around a cause.

After Emancipation, some Southern Protestants refused to revise their proslavery views. In their minds, slavery had been divinely sanctioned.

At the royal wedding, bishop Michael Curry delivered a rousing address, calling attention to the African American experience in the Anglican Church.

Mother Superior Benedetta Carlini, a visionary nun of Renaissance Italy, was accused of heresy and “female sodomy.”

Beginning in the late eighteenth century, many Americans experienced a crisis of religious authority. During this time, the idea of an unambiguous “plain Bible” began to gain traction.

Researchers see a distinct difference between immigrant Buddhism and those Americans who have embraced its tenets.

The day-long Purim festival was transformed into a week-long carnival in the Dutch Caribbean colonies, as a rowdy celebration of inversion celebrated liberations of all kinds.