Sacred & Profane

Over the last few years, Americans have removed statues from public spaces at what might be a record clip. In 2022, we spoke with art historian Erin Thompson (https://www.artcrimep...

If you had to guess one of the best-selling poets in America, a long-dead Sufi mystic named Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi might not be at the top of your list. And yet, his poetry has...

Here in the States, it's become an annual tradition for conservative commentators to bemoan the "war on Christmas." That's the idea that Christmas is being pushed out in favor of n...

The Confederate monuments around Charlottesville’s county courthouse have all been removed, and a new kind of public memory is emerging in Charlottesville’s Court Square. The stree...

We're living in an era where robots are increasingly common in our factories and our homes. So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that robots are also finding a place in religious sp...

Each year, Americans celebrate the Fourth of July with fireworks, parades, and barbecues. Celebrating July Fourth is part of what some scholars identify as America’s civil religion...

The media often cover the Satanic Temple as an elaborate prank, pulled off by a group of dedicated trolls trying to rile conservative Christians. But despite those public perceptio...

Renowned Biblical scholar Dr. Renita Weems joins us to discuss how the translation of one particular word can profoundly change the meaning of a well-loved book of the Hebrew Bible...

Today on the show, we dive into one the best-selling books in the early United States: a massive compendium of world religions. It's a work that's incomplete, and sometimes incorre...

We'll be returning with a third season soon. But we couldn't ignore the biggest story about religion in 2021 - the pro-Trump mob that stormed the US Capitol hoping to overturn a de...

There are hundreds of Confederate memorials across the U.S. With our colleague Jalane Schmidt, we explore an often overlooked part of their history: religion. Not only are these mo...

On paper, France is an egalitarian society. The republican ideals of liberté, égalité and fraternité are carved into public buildings across the country. And formal equality is car...