The Cadaver Synod: Putting a Dead Pope on Trial
Why did Pope Stephen VI go to such great lengths to destroy an enemy who was already dead?
The Festival of the Flayed God
The terrifying and gruesome rituals of the Flayed God had a symbolic subtext that was somewhat gentler than one might imagine.
Pop-Culture Preaching in the 1910s
Billy Sunday was a charismatic preacher who brought in thousands to his vaudeville-inspired church services.
When Buddhism Came to America
Buddhism was embraced by the Beats of 1950s America. But some Buddhists felt these converts were engaging with the practice in a shallow way.
Austen Fans, Modern Belief, and Environmental Politics
New books and scholarship from Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, and the University Press of Colorado.
What Monks Can Teach us about Managing our Work Lives
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.
Why Europe’s Oldest Intact Book Was Found in a Saint’s Coffin
The St. Cuthbert Gospel is the earliest surviving intact European book. Some time around 698, it was slipped into the coffin of a saint.
When Science and Religion Were Connected
During the Second Great Awakening of 1830, science and religion were seen as “two aspects of the same universal truth.”
The Massive Fight over Sunday Mail
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.
How Antebellum Christians Justified Slavery
After Emancipation, some Southern Protestants refused to revise their proslavery views. In their minds, slavery had been divinely sanctioned.