An image of Marshall Applewhite from the poster for the docuseries Heaven's Gate: The Cult of Cults

Behind the Curtain of the Heaven’s Gate Cult

On the 25th anniversary of UFO cult Heaven's Gate's mass suicide, a religion scholar examines its theology and doctrines in the context of the New Age Movement.
Metropolitan Community Church of Washington DC

The Origins of LGBTQ-Affirming Churches

As far back as the 1940s, religious LGBTQ people organized groups and congregations that welcomed them.
People standing in a group looking into the light

Cults on TV!

How stereotypes influence our ideas about what is and isn’t legitimate religion.
An Ayahuasca visual

The Colonization of the Ayahuasca Experience

“If someone is from the Amazon,” says Evgenia Fotiou, an anthropologist who studies Western ayahuasca usage, “they bring some legitimacy” to an ayahuasca ritual.
Student in a Black Studies class in a west side Chicago classroom, 1973

African American Studies: Foundations and Key Concepts

This non-exhaustive list of readings in African American Studies highlights the vibrant history of the discipline and introduces the field.
An illustration of Mormon leader James Strang speaking with a Mormon woman

When Adventists and Mormons Turned Sex-Positive

How the once sex-averse Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Seventh Day Adventism embraced (married, monogamous) sex as a positive ideal.
kendrick lamar

Kendrick Lamar and Black Israelism

Kendrick Lamar namechecked Black Israelism on his last album. The history behind the religious doctrine dates back at least to the eighteenth century.
Open Bible

The Dream of a Plain Bible

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.
Halie Selassie

Why a Coup in Ethiopia Created a Faith Crisis in Jamaica

Rastafarians emerged from anti-colonial, anti-racism movements of the 60s, they also looked back toward their African ancestry.
Timothy Leary

How LSD Went From Research to Religion

The lines between psychological research and mysticism were blurry in the early days of LSD.