Manuscript Illumination with Singing Monks in an Initial D, from a Psalter

Monastic Chant: Praising God Out Loud

For medieval monks, chant was often a crucial part of worship, but theologians had different ideas about how the words and sounds helped evoke piety.
Mahakala

Buddhist Pacifists at War

In the early centuries of Vajrayāna Buddhism in India, practitioners worked to reconcile the religion’s teaching of nonviolence with the realities of warfare.
Tongan beach with small wooden jetty and thatched huts

Wooden Kings and Winds of Change in Tonga

The island nation of Tonga is home to the last Polynesian monarchy.
Group portrait of Christian heavy metal band Stryper, 1984

Sex (No!), Drugs (No!), and Rock and Roll (Yes!)

In the 1980s and 1990s, Christian heavy metal bands used head-banging music to share the politics and values of evangelical Christians with America’s youth.
Saint Mary of Egypt by Angelo Maccagnino, 15th century

Wild Saints and Holy Fools

Early Christian writers valorized the desert life of ascetic monks, but the city also had something to offer would-be “fools for Christ”.
Colombian taitas, 2001

The Diverse Shamanisms of South America

In Brazil, Indigenous people and city-dwellers of all backgrounds mix various shamanic practices, including rituals imported from North America and elsewhere.
An illustration from Technic and Practice of Chiropractic, 1915

The Metaphysical Story of Chiropractic

Chiropractic medicine began as a practice built on an approach to the human condition that was distinctly opposed to Christianity.
Jizō, c. 1202

A Bodhisattva for Japanese Women

Originally known in China as Dizāng, the “savior of the damned,” Jizō has evolved into a protector of children and comforter of women in Japan.
The Reverend Brian Hession of the Dawn Trust and Bible Films Ltd film company starts a showing of a religious film at St Peter's Church, Piccadilly, London, 1946

Seeing the World Through Missionaries’ Eyes

One way Americans got a look into life in distant parts of the world in the 1930s and ’40s was through films made by Protestant missionary groups.
Saint Wilgefortis

Meet Saint Wilgefortis, the Bearded Virgin

A Christian martyr, Wilgefortis was divinely gifted with a sudden growth of facial hair to escape forced marriage, only to be crucified by her father.