Telling good religion stories

Religious, spiritual and faith-inspired actors have long shaped public responses to some of society’s most urgent shared crises—from welcoming the stranger to caring for creation. Yet in much of the media coverage around issues like immigration, the economy, gun violence, and the environment, engaged voices of faith are often oversimplified, sidelined, or portrayed in a critical manner.

But what if we focused on good religion stories instead?

In a forthcoming anthology combining journalistic narrative with social-scientific reflections, titled Engaged Spirituality: Stories of Religious Resilience, Inspiration, and Pursuit of the Common Good, I and 17 other authors explore the power of telling such stories. But with an unexpected twist. Or you might say, a surprise ending: that telling good religion stories helps us to look beyond the present, imagine a new repertoire of the possible, and rise together to advance vital conversations around some of the most critical issues of our time.

The anthology emerged out of the Spiritual Exemplars Project, sponsored by the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture, which involved a team of journalists and researchers profiling 104 spiritually-engaged humanitarians across 13 faith traditions and 42 countries.

The exemplars, individuals motivated and sustained by spiritual values, beliefs, and practices to serve humanity, included a nun who performed the first Buddhist same-sex wedding, a Jewish lay leader who served more than 2 million meals to food-insecure college students, a priest who helped rescue 150,000 distressed refugees in the Mediterranean Sea, a Jain who served more than 400,000 people in 400 Sri Lankan villages and a Latina convert who founded the first shelter for Muslim migrants at the U.S./Mexico border.

Their lives, inspired by African Religious traditions, Baha’i precepts, Protestant ethics, Humanist altruism, and Indigenous spirituality, highlighted some of humanity’s highest shared values in pursuit of the common good.

During the project, team members realized they were not only gaining insights about how spiritually engaged humanitarians understand their lives and work, but about how religious values and spiritual practices inspire and sustain social action on a larger scale. This anthology is an outgrowth of that process, taking readers on a journey to meet people doing extraordinary work and to share their life trajectories, traumas, and triumphs.

Religion...in space! 🚀

Picture outer space. Its seemingly endless reach, its pulsating planets and twinkling stars, the swirling canopy of galaxies, a mantle of nebulae, the curvature of Earth’s blue expanse from a vantage point miles away.

Absorbing yourself in these images, what do you feel? 

Some might compare the impulse to awe when we picture outer space or see images beamed back from faraway satellites to religious epiphany or other forms of spiritual inspiration. 

From astrology to astrotheology, from questions of how to practice religions ensconced in Earth’s realities and rhythms to the context of outer space or life on other planets to the creation of new traditions, spirituality and space exploration are more intertwined than you may think. 

In the latest edition of ReligionLink, we explore the intersections between religion and space, offering background, relevant stories and expert sources to help you report on religious traditions boldly going where no religions have gone before.

Religion’s next great frontier 

Humans have long been drawn to space as part of our search for meaning, significance and security.

Astrology originated in ancient Mesopotamia before spreading to various regions and cultures, perhaps most notably in the Hellenistic period in Greece and later in Islamic and European cultures.  It initially was a form of divination, with early astrologers using celestial events to interpret omens from the gods and predict the future.

Over time, astrology developed in different directions, with horoscope columns coming to feature in daily newspapers starting in the 1930s.

Today, astrology has been experiencing a bit of a renaissance, with many among the spiritual-but-not-religious seeking to discern meaning and purpose by studying the positions of celestial objects.

Stars have held varying levels of significance in various religious traditions. A star is supposed to have guided “wise men from the East” to the first Nativity; and both the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian New Testament bear references to the stars providing divine guidance and revelation. Finno-Ugric and Turkish Tatars associated the North Star (Polaris) with the “pillar of heaven,” while the Milky Way has been seen as a symbol of a cosmic tree or the path of the gods.

In Judaism, the Star of David, or six-pointed star, is a prominent symbol representing the union of heaven and earth and is a rallying marker of protection, identity and unity. In Buddhism, stars can be seen as celestial luminaries, and in Hindu scriptures, the stars are often depicted as the abode of gods and goddesses, symbolizing enlightenment and the eternal nature of the soul.

More recently, the relationship between religious traditions and space is evolving — for example, as more Muslim-majority nations venture into space exploration, writes Béatrice Hainaut. The first Muslim in space was in 1985, and to date, 18 Muslim astronauts have traveled beyond Earth’s orbit. But over the last 10 years, countries such as Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia have established space agencies and expressed ambitious space strategies. Other states, including Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia and Pakistan, are also showing interest in space research and possible applications derived from it.

It is perhaps the new religious movement Astronism, however, that has taken the relationship between astronomy and religion to its logical limit. At the age of 15, Brandon Reece Taylorian, also widely known under his mononym Cometan, founded Astronism, an astronomical religion that “teaches that outer space should become the central element of our practical, spiritual, and contemplative lives,” according to its website.

“From my perspective, how religion and outer space intersect is crucial to understanding the future of religion,” Cometan, who is also a lecturer at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, told ReligionLink. “Outer space is the next great frontier that will reshape the human condition, including our religions.”

To that end, some have started to ponder how space exploration itself might be considered its own form of epiphanic religion, producing its own forms of insight, revelation and spiritual experience.

That makes sense to Cometan. “The further we dare to venture beyond Earth, the more our beliefs about God and the universe will transform. I think that we need new and bold religious systems that will inspire our species to confront and overcome the challenges of the next frontier,” he said. “As an Astronist, I define outer space as the supreme medium through which the traditional questions of religion will be answered.”

Whether Cometan proves to be correct, stars have been interpreted in diverse ways across religious traditions, reflecting the human desire to understand and connect with the divine through the wonders of the cosmos.

Is The Christian Right Coming For Europe?

If you’re anything like me, you pay attention when an e-mail is marked “URGENT!!” 

The particular e-mail I have in mind carried a subject line that was direct and equally attention-grabbing: “Christian nationalism is coming for Europe.”

The content was a single link, to an article written by United States journalist Katherine Stewart for The New Republic on the rise of the Christian Right in the United Kingdom. In it, Stewart tells of how she believes a form of hyper-patriarchal, homophobic and nationalistic Christianity often associated with evangelicals in the US is gaining a beachhead in the UK. The developments there, she writes, “are like a window on the American past. 

“This is how things must have looked before the antidemocratic reaction really took hold,” she wrote. 

As a correspondent covering European Christians and as a scholar teaching religion in Germany, I’ve tracked some of the developments, institutions and movements Stewart cites. While rumors of the Christian right’s rise in Europe need to be taken seriously, it is also vitally important that the careful observer of religion take note of some of the complexities that have shaped the Christian right’s contours in ways distinct from, if related to, the forms we see taking hold in the U.S. 

Sikhi: An Updated Guide

There are more than 27 million Sikhs around the world, which makes Sikhi (also known as Sikhism) the fifth-largest major world religion. Yet the Sikh tradition remains largely unknown to the global community – no other religion of its magnitude is as misunderstood as Sikhi.

The Sikh religion has been underrepresented and misrepresented in the popular media, and these problems have contributed to the serious challenges that Sikhs experience today, including negative stereotypes, discriminatory policies, and violent hate crimes.

This guide — a collaboration between the Sikh Coalition and ReligionLink and updated in 2025 — provides information on the Sikh tradition in order to facilitate better understanding of Sikhs and Sikhi.

Intrafaith minorities: Appreciating religious communities’ internal diversity

When it comes to international religious freedom, we tend to hear a lot about religious minorities, their struggle for rights and recognition or persecution — both state-sanctioned and informal. 

But what of intrafaith minorities? 

While interfaith tensions refer to high-friction relations between different religious communities, intrafaith conflict occurs between different denominations or groups within a faith tradition. 

One might think of frictions between Shiite majorities in Iraq and Iran and their Sunni minorities — or vice versa in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Syria — or the sometimes awkward relationship between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christians. 

In this edition of ReligionLink, we look at intrafaith diversity and discrimination, unpacking how people of different interpretations deal with internal distinctions and differences within shared traditions. 

Can AI Understand Religion? Students Put It To The Test

Ask E.B. Tylor what religion is and he would say it is, “belief in Spiritual Beings.”

Ask William James and he will tell you it is the “feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men in their solitude.”

Ask Catherine L. Albanese, and she would say it is “a system of symbols (creed, code, cultus) by means of which people (a community) orient themselves in the world with reference to both ordinary and extraordinary powers, meanings, and values.”

Ask Émile Durkheim, Clifford Geertz or others, and you’d get a different answer from the perspectives of sociology, anthropology, theology, philosophy and more.

But what if you ask ChatGPT?

Well, you get a mix of the above, it turns out.

When I asked my friendly, neighborhood artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, it defined religion as, “a system of beliefs, practices, symbols, and moral codes that connects individuals or communities to the sacred, the divine, or some ultimate reality or truth.”

In the wake of ChatGPT’s viral launch in 2021, the question of how to integrate AI into the classroom — and the religious studies classroom at that — has been at the forefront of educators’ minds. With the global expansion of machine learning, big data, and large language models (LLMs), AI has the potential to radically impact teaching and learning, revolutionizing the way students interact with knowledge and how educators engage course participants.

There are, however, significant concerns about its ethical use, technology infrastructures, and fair access.

In this post, I share how I recently used AI as part of my pedagogy to help prompt deeper understanding of religion in the United States – and what we might have to learn from chatbots about how we define and discuss religion.

The AI Unessay

AI is a technology that enables machines and computers to emulate human intelligence and mimic its problem-solving powers.

The umbrella term “AI” encompasses various forms of machine-based systems that produce predictions, recommendations or content based on direct or indirect human-defined objectives. Based on

LLMs, AI generators like ChatGPT, Jasper or Google Gemini are tools that have been trained on vast amounts of data and text to provide predictive responses to requests, questions and prompts inputted by users like you, me or our students.

As with other advances in technology — from mobile phones and social media to enhanced graphics calculators and Wikipedia — educators have responded to AI in various ways. Some have moved quickly to ban its use and bemoan the submission of essays and other coursework clearly created with the help of AI.

Others have moved to integrate AI into their religious studies pedagogy, inviting students to create videos or infographics with the assist of AI to explain the elements, and role, of rituals to stimulate class discussion or to treat “AI as a tool for lessons that go beyond academics and also focus on the whole person.”

When I recently taught a course on American religion, I decided to assign what I called an “AI Unessay.”

The usual unessay invites students of varying learning modalities and expressions to create final projects that demonstrate their grasp of course material and discussions beyond the traditional essay. These can be hands-on demonstrations, mini-documentaries, artistic visualizations, performative projects or social media campaigns.

The AI Unessay invited course participants to design a set of prompts for an AI generator (e.g., ChatGPT) to write a 2,000-word essay on a topic in American religion, broadly defined. Then, participants were asked to write their own critical response to this AI essay, analyzing its strengths, weaknesses, sources and the process itself.

AI’s Religious Illiteracy

Students chose a variety of topics to cover, from religious themes in metal music and superhero comics to the “trad wife” trend among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and digital seances.

Throughout the semester, I worked with participants to refine their topic selections, come up with AI prompts and conduct secondary-source research and firsthand “digital fieldwork.”

Meanwhile, course lectures and readings were provided to supply helpful context on how each of these themes might be better placed within the wider currents of American religion and its

In a recent classroom experiment, students found, like many others, that AI responses were often biased, inaccurate, or even harmfully ignorant. | Image created in Meta AI for Patheos.

intersections with U.S. politics, economics and society.

Not all course participants opted for the AI Unessay. Others wrote traditional papers or put together a different kind of creative final project. But the majority of students opted for the AI-based project, saying they not only wanted to learn more about how to productively, and critically, work with AI, but wondered whether the technology was up for the challenge of understanding, parsing out and pontificating on America’s religious diversity.

Though participants did learn some new information from the AI essays and discovered some data they hitherto were unaware of, they were — on the whole — disappointed with the results. They found, like many others, that AI responses were often biased, inaccurate or even harmfully ignorant.

They also found that citations and sources were a decidedly mixed bag, with the chatbots often manufacturing fake data and made-up books or articles.

And finally, numerous students reflected that it was a challenge to get the AI chatbot to write at the appropriate length (2,000 words). The technology was often too efficient, churning out well-structured, but far too brief, answers to questions about metal music’s spiritual intimations or the nuances of the “trad wife” trend on TikTok. When asked to elaborate, participants found AI was overly repetitive or even fabricated false information or created concrete details and data that were inaccurate or exaggerated. It also regurgitated implicit and explicit biases against marginalized religious communities or intra-faith minorities.

As one participant summed it up, “I found AI to be more religiously illiterate than me, which is saying something!”

Where to from here?

Asked to consider why AI was found wanting in its accuracy in depicting American religious diversity, participants surmised that because AI is trained on what internet publics “know” and share about religion, it is just as religiously illiterate as the rest of us. They suggested it takes students of religion who are paying careful attention to help it along, correct its mistakes and continue to critically question the just-so narratives about religion, religions and the religious that can be found online.

In other words, participants discovered how AI amplifies and compounds some of the worst in religious illiteracy.

Writing for the Religion, Agency and AI forum, digital religion scholar Giulia Evolvi reminds us that in an age of hypermediation, “religious communication, like all modern communication, is no longer mediated linearly. Instead, digital media amplifies and reshapes it, creating intensified networks and narratives.”

Thus, in an age when more people will turn to AI to answer their questions about religion and spirituality, it is important that we engage with the technology, critique its biases and weaknesses and continue to pay attention to the ways humans employ the concept of “religion” to make sense of the world around them and their place in it.

Even with the advent of AI technologies — and religious studies students’ use of it — the why of studying religion doesn’t change. Religion remains interesting, intricate and important.

We might just need to shift some of the ways we go about making sense of it and adapt our classrooms and conversations accordingly.

Pope Francis dies aged 88. What's next?

After briefly appearing in Saint Peter’s Square to wish thousands of worshippers “Happy Easter” on Sunday, Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21, at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. He was 88.

In a video statement, the Vatican announced his death early Monday, just weeks after he survived a serious bout of double pneumonia.

His death plunged Catholics around the world into grief. Cardinal Kevin Farrell, camerlengo, announced the Pope’s passing, “with profound sadness.” His passing also leaves the papacy vacant until a conclave is convened in Rome to elect the new pontiff.

Pope Francis — who was the first Latin American elevated to the papacy on March 13, 2013, after a two-day conclave charged with determining a successor to Pope Benedict XVI — leaves a record of attacks on clericalism, empowerment of the church’s lay members and dialogue within the church around its public and pastoral role on issues such as climate change and xenophobia, immigration and women’s ordination.

Labeled “liberal, progressive, populist, disruptive and even pop,” Francis steered the church leftward after more than three decades of conservative leadership. But his record on issues like climate change, clergy abuse scandals, women’s ordination and LGBTQ acceptance is far from settled, with critics questioning his reforms and his handling of the Roman Catholic Church’s various crises. 

That legacy, and its long-term impact on Catholics worldwide, will be in part decided by who is selected as the next pope. That process begins with a convening of the College of Cardinals — the conclave — within 15 to 20 days of the pope’s death. 

This edition of ReligionLink provides insight on Pope Francis’ tenure in the papal office, in-depth information about how a new pope will be chosen and leads on who the top contenders are to lead more than 1.3 billion Roman Catholics worldwide.

Connect, Care, Contribute: The Potential and Power of Muslim Women’s Philanthropy

Image via Interfaith America.

Head to the U.S./Mexico border where a shelter founded by Sonia Tinoco García and the Latina Muslim Foundation serves thousands of asylum seekers each year; connect with Sakina Bakharia, president of the Barbados Association of Muslim Ladies, the first and only organization in Barbados that responds to the needs of Muslim women and girls; or visit Hazel Gómez, a Puerto Rican and Mexican Muslim community organizer with Dream of Detroit, a nonprofit that combines strategic housing and land development to empower marginalized neighborhoods.  

Each is an example of Muslim women making an impact in their communities, based on their unique skillsets and experiences.   

According to researchers at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy’s Muslim Philanthropy Initiative, philanthropy plays a vital role in the daily life of Muslim women.  

As part of a growing Muslim philanthropic landscape that gives an estimated 4.3 billion dollars in zakat (obligatory charity that requires Muslims to give 2.5% of their wealth), women contribute beyond monetary giving as well, donating their time, talent and community ties to the greater good.  

Nausheena Hussain, who helped shape the report and is author of a new book on Muslim’s women’s finance and giving titled, Prosperity with Purpose: A Muslim Woman’s Guide to Generosity and Abundance, said such research is vital to better understand Muslim women’s engagement, impact and still untapped philanthropic potential. 

“First, Muslims in general have been underrepresented in philanthropic research,” she said, “and Muslim women are often misrepresented.”  

Earlier reports had shown that Muslim men gave more money than women. But Hussain knew that philanthropy encompassed more than monetary contributions. She approached MPI’s Director, Shariq Siddiqui, about conducting research into women’s giving, volunteering and motivations for civic activism.  

The results not only showed that Muslim women were involved, but that they were engaged at scale, with their generosity behaviors amplifying each other. In MPI’s 2023 report, seven out of ten women said they actively participate in one or more organizations — and because of this participation, were more likely to give zakat. In other words, if they were giving their time, they were giving more money.  

They also found that if the same women were registered voters, they were even more likely to donate, volunteer, and participate in the community. Their data showed 87% of total zakat given by Muslim women was by those who were also registered voters — and those that are registered to vote were also 15 times more likely to volunteer.  

This kind of research, Hussain said, not only departed from existing literature that focused on negative stereotypes of Muslim women or social stigmas and discrimination but also showed a side to American generosity that was not white, Christian or male-centric.  

“When Muslim women cannot see ourselves in the broader story of Muslim or American giving, it becomes difficult to imagine ourselves as philanthropists,” she said. “Part of my goal is to be able to tell those stories, so that Muslim women can see themselves in these roles.” 

A housing crisis of faith

“It’s the first thing you notice about the United States,” said Bernhard Froebe, a German tourist visiting Los Angeles in the summer of 2024. “There are so many people living in the streets, on the sides of the road, in whole encampments,” said Froebe, who hails from the Saxon city of Zwickau. “It’s shocking.” 

Froebe’s remarks come as no surprise to Americans, who have seen homelessness rise 40% since 2018 and rent and home sale prices soar upward of 155% over the last five years. 

According to the 2024 “America’s Rental Housing” report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities in 2022 — a record high. Together, the numbers speak to an impending sense of crisis and pessimism about the U.S. housing market. 

And according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night — 771,480 people — was the highest ever recorded. Accounting for around 2 of every 1,000 people in the country, people in families with children, individuals,  unaccompanied youth, veterans and others found themselves in emergency shelters, safe havens, transitional housing or unsheltered and out on the streets.

Like the stats themselves, the factors are many: a worsening housing crisis, stagnating wages among middle- and lower-income households, systemic racism, public health crises, disasters and displacement, inflation.

But how are faith communities responding?  

In early 2025, numerous nonprofits and federal agencies were dealt a series of blows, as President Donald Trump signed several executive orders halting aid and slashing budgets, including that of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which was formed in 1987 to coordinate the federal response. The cuts, experts fear, will exacerbate the problems they already were struggling to address.

Religious communities across the spectrum have responded in various ways, providing direct support to those in need. For example, Latino Muslims in Chicago have developed a program called “Neighborly Deeds,” distributing warm meals, blankets, clothes and hygiene products to those experiencing homelessness. And on the streets of Skid Row in Los Angeles, the Friars and Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ — a Catholic religious order founded in Brazil — have been ministering to recently arrived immigrants living in temporary housing or in tents along the road.

Individually, many who are unhoused turn to religious and spiritual practices, including Christian prayer, Buddhist meditationor Native-specific independent spiritual practices, as a means of protection or coping with the stress and related problems of homelessness.

Long a partner, or primary provider, to individuals and families experiencing homelessness, faith and values groups have also started to respond in more creative ways to the current crisis, looking to address more than immediate needs.

Shifting away from traditional shelters or safe havens, faith communities have started offering affordable housing: erecting microhomes on church properties, converting residences — from parsonages to convents — into units or repurposing vacant schools and parking lots. Many of the churches converting their underused land into affordable flats riff off the anti-development slogan “Not in my backyard” (NIMBY), instead advocating with the motto “Yes in God’s backyard” (YIGBY).

Meanwhile, the nonreligious organization SecularHelp runs its “Helping the Homeless” program, which it says provides direct, practical support to individuals experiencing homelessness without “relying on supernatural or faith-based approaches.”

But critics such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State lament that for many experiencing homelessness, “the only organized form of temporary shelter comes from a faith-based organization or church.” Though they can provide essential resources, Americans United wrote, churches can also use “this resource gap as an opportunity to proselytize a vulnerable population.” This issue recently came to the fore in the U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, in which Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, questioned the religious rules around providing shelter to the unhoused.

In another case, a church providing temporary shelter around the clock in Bryan, Ohio, was found guilty of violating zoning and fire codes in local criminal court. That decision, along with a civil case against the church, is being appealed.

At the very least, the above shows the numerous religion, ethics and values angles to be explored when it comes to the United States’ rapidly growing housing crisis.

When religious leaders die

For me, Jimmy Carter’s death came too soon.

Not necessarily because of his age. He lived to the ripe old age of 100 and, in many respects, lived those years to the fullest.

No, and if I may be crass for a moment, Carter passed before I had a reporting guide ready for reporters looking to cover the faith angles of his life and legacy.

You see, as Editor for ReligionLink, I put together resources and reporting guides for journalists covering topics in religion. Each month, we publish a guide covering topics such as education and church-state-separation under Trump, faith and immigration or crime and houses of worship.

Early in 2024, I started to put together a guide to cover the passing of Jimmy Carter. Serving as Editor is only a part-time gig, and it usually takes all the time I have dedicated to the role to produce a single, monthly guide. But on the side, I started to make notes, identify sources and build a timeline for Carter’s life and legacy.

When he passed on December 29, 2024, the guide was not ready. Nor would it be in the matter of days necessary for it to be useful. So, the opportunity came and went. The draft of the guide to covering Jimmy Carter’s passing tossed on the editing floor.

The missed occasion, however, inspired me to work ahead more intentionally on guides for other famous faith leaders. The process of putting such guides together led me to reflect on what it means to remember, and report on, the passing of prominent figures in religion. 

Islam, Real and Imagined: PW Talks with John Tolan

In Islam: A New History, the historian chronicles the religion’s 1,400–year evolution through profiles of figures who showcase its diversity.

Why is a new history of Islam particularly relevant now?

Much of the current discourse on Islam is based on a traditional narrative about its origins and rise, as if everything we know about the religion was produced by Muhammad and his companions in the seventh century. But as recent scholarship shows, Islam emerged gradually and has been in constant change over the centuries. This pushes back on what Muslim fundamentalists believe is a “pure” form of Islam—an imagined, ideal society around Muhammad where Sharia was already the law of the land. The far right does the opposite, saying that this early Islamic society persecuted minorities, women, and so forth, and that it is essentially the same today. This means, for them, that Muslims are not able to adapt to modern Western societies. I hope to show people who are not on either of those extremes Islam’s rich history and diversity.

Who are some of the people from Islamic history you introduce and how do they illustrate these themes?

One of the chapters that was most fun for me is about Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century Moroccan man who leaves home at the age of 22 and travels for 20 years, going as far as India, China, and beyond. He gets jobs as a judge and an administrator in Delhi and the Maldives. He’s appreciated wherever he goes, because he knows his Quran and Islamic law. At the same time, his testimony shows the diversity of the Muslim world and its constant engagement with others—with Christians, with Hindus, with Buddhists. His story reminds us that the real demographic center of Islam is much further east than the Middle East or North Africa, and that in all these countries Muslims have had to interact, often creatively, with people of other faiths. Still today, none of the top five countries with the largest Muslim population is Arab.

How does one make sense of such a vast and diverse religion?

I like to point readers to the cover of the book. You see this Indian-looking woman lying prostrate in prayer and receiving a paper with a text in Arabic, a verse from the Quran. This is Rabia al-Adawiyya, an eighth-century Iraqi Sufi woman, portrayed a thousand years later by an Indian artist as a well-dressed, idyllic beauty of 18th-century India. That, to me, shows Islam’s paradoxical unity in diversity, because here she is, an Iraqi Sufi who speaks across borders and centuries, holding a verse from the Quran to which all Muslims would relate.

A version of this article appeared in the 03/24/2025 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: John Tolan

Can Christian Charities Serve Both God and Trump?

The U.S. government and faith-based organizations have worked together since the dawn of the United States. The same Congress that prevented the government from endorsing or becoming too involved in religious activities through the First Amendment also set aside land for churches in the Northwest Territory, later Ohio, in the 1780s. Funds to support recently emancipated people after the Civil War were often channeled through Christian schools and agencies.

In the wake of World War II, faith-based relief organizations worked hand-in-hand with the U.S. government to deliver aid and address hunger, poverty, and displacement around the world. In the early 2000s, the George W. Bush administration created its “faith-based initiatives” program, which made religious social-service providers—including evangelical groups—institutionalized partners of the U.S. government.

But in his second term, President Donald Trump has quickly signaled a drastic shift in this relationship. In executive orders, Trump froze federal grants flowing to religious nonprofits; terminated refugee resettlement programs, most of which are run by religious organizations; and suspended foreign aid pending review. The Trump administration effectively dismantled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which partners with an array of religious charities and communities.

The administration’s efforts face legal challenges on multiple fronts. A federal judge in Washington ordered a temporarily lift to the funding freeze that halted U.S. foreign aid. Meanwhile, religious groups have challenged the administration’s cuts, arguing that they disproportionately harm vulnerable populations. In separate suits, multiple faith-based organizations have challenged what they say is the unlawful suspension of refugee resettlement programs.

Faith leaders fear that such measures are just the beginning of a larger realignment of the U.S. government’s relationship with religious groups toward an aggressive attitude of brute force and domination.

Covering, and Questioning, Anti-Christian Persecution

If you report on religion long enough, you’re bound to be called an anti-Christian bigot at some point in time.

In my 14 years of reporting, I’ve been labeled an atheist agent for my coverage of a book on how Jesus may have been a vegetarian, denounced as a prejudiced partisan as I covered instances of clergy abuse in Houston, Texas, and much worse for my writing on neo-Nazi ideology and racism among Lutherans in Germany and the U.S.

In each case, the critique of my writing was less about the coverage or claims therein, but much more to do with a feeling that anti-Christian bias — and even persecution — in the media is not only real but rampant.

When it comes to the issue of anti-Christian persecution itself, coverage in the media can sometimes swing between two magnetic poles. On one end are those who are convinced that such persecution is the most pressing contemporary human rights issue. On the other are those who equate such statements as melodrama, with little grounding in the lived reality of most communities worldwide.

Journalists covering the issue might be swayed depending upon their sources, who often have a stake in arguing one way or the other.

To best cover the matter of anti-Christian persecution, or to address it when it comes up in critiques of our coverage, reporters have to make two things clear: 1) many individuals and communities across the globe are vulnerable because of their identification as Christians and 2) that the extent of anti-Christian persecution is not as widespread or as grievous as some make it out to be.

To help navigate how to cover particular cases and claims, I recommend journalists consider issues related to power, the shift from “privilege to plurality,” and how Christians use the idea of persecution as a way to make sense of their faith in the 21st century. 

If Piety Is Always Political, Who Then Is A Saint?

On the outskirts of Naples, in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius, lies the sanctuary of Madonna dell’Arco in Sant’Anastasia.

The walls of the shrine are covered in painted, votive tavolette — little, painted boards given as an offering in fulfillment of a vow (ex voto) and featuring devotional scenes and images of the Virgin Mary holding the infant Christ.

One of my favorites features a man in bed, with a heavily bandaged leg, his small children and wife praying to the Virgin and Child as they appear amidst a veil of clouds from their throne in heaven.

It is, in many ways, a visual embodiment of traditional notions of piety, defined as dutiful devotion to the divine.

But as I teach in my religious studies courses, piety can take a variety of forms.

It can be visual and sartorial, both highly personal and politically charged. More than an individual’s particular practice of religious reverence, piety is a socially defined and structured response to one’s emotional, social and material context. And in a time of political upheaval, social uncertainty and ecological anxiety, it might do well to revisit piety and its varieties.

How they do it in Deutschland: Signposts for Interreligious Dialogue in Germany

The Christmas market attacks in Magdeburg — and the heated political atmosphere that followed — have stressed a range of issues ahead of Germany’s snap elections on February 23.  

Voters across Europe’s largest economy are concerned about domestic security, immigration, upholding the rule of law and strengthening democracy against perceived enemies within and without.  

An important aspect of this equation is how followers of Germany’s various religious communities might work to address these concerns together.  

With a total population of nearly 85 million, there are an estimated 23 million Catholics (27 percent), 21 million Protestants (25 percent) and nearly 5 million Muslims (5.7 percent). There are also smaller populations of evangelicals (2 percent) and Orthodox Christians (1.9 percent), as well as Jews, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, Yezidis, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Pagans and Sikhs. Notably, 44 percent of Germans (or 37 million) claim no religious affiliation, but may practice some form of spirituality or hold some kind of enchanted worldview.  

In my latest for Interfaith America, I explore how members of these various groups work together — or against one another — is of great importance for the future of plural, open societies like Germany. 

Reporting on faith in polarized times

In a slight departure from my usual column at Patheos (“What you missed without religion class”), I was asked by my editors to respond to the following prompt, as part of their new initiative on Faith & Media:

“Faith Amid the Fray: Representing Belief Fairly During Polarized Political Times - Explore the role of media in shaping perceptions of faith during politically charged times. As we have a government in transition and the world becomes less stable, how should the media work to accurately reflect faith’s place in all this? ”

As outgoing president of the Religion News Association and Editor of ReligionLink — a premier resource for journalists writing on religion — I’ve spent time thinking about what religion reporters write about and how it’s best done.

Looking back on my 14 years on the beat, and looking ahead to the role of news media in shaping perceptions of faith in the politically charged times we have ahead of us, I believe religion reporters have the opportunity to approach the next year with “curiosity” — as The New Yorker’s Emma Green put it — and recommit to the balance, accuracy and insight that best characterizes our beat.

I encourage all those who care about faith and media in polarized times to take a deeper look at the link below…

Death, dying, and faith in America

Death, as the cliche goes, is one of life’s few certainties.  

At some point in time, all of us with loved ones will be bereaved by their passing. We will attend services, gather with family and friends, and otherwise memorialize the dead we once knew.  

And, eventually, all of us will die.  

Though death is a universal experience, the nature of death and dying in the United States continues to evolve.   

Thanks to technological advances, shifting healthcare norms, the rearrangement of families, communities and social structures, ongoing differences due to class and race, as well as alterations to America’s religious landscape, death and dying in the U.S. have changed dramatically in recent decades.  

Over the last century, life expectancy has continued (with occasional setbacks) to increase — with the current lifespans lasting an average of 77.5 years — and three-quarters (74.76%) of the nearly 3.1 million deaths in the U.S. in 2023 were to persons aged 65 and older. Death is also a progressively protracted and isolating affair. Occurring after a chronic illness, long-term discomfort, or slow-but-steady cognitive decline, many face the egress alone, as smaller families, divorce rates, and the continuing breakdown of connections among individuals’ social networks leaves many with fragile networks of community and care at the end of their lives.  

And while religion in the U.S. may not be dying, our changing relationship with faith has important implications for how individuals and communities face the end of life in 21st-century America.  

The religious "no" vote

Twenty years ago, John D. Roth thought members of his Anabaptist tradition should stop voting — if only for a season. 

In an essay he distributed among clergy of the Anabaptist movement, which includes pacifist traditions such as the Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites, Roth called for a five-year break from voting to pray and reflect, rather than campaign for one candidate or the other. He argued that the differences between political aspirants were illusory and that in national elections Christians might better fulfill their role by questioning, challenging and discomfiting those holding power, rather than tacitly or explicitly supporting any particular party or person. 

Roth believes his summons to a voting “sabbatical” is just as relevant today. “I wrote that essay 20 years ago, when the deep cultural divisions were just beginning to show up in our churches,” Roth told New Lines. “The idea was that we were in need of a deeper spiritual grounding in the face of the highly polarized political climate. Not surprisingly, that idea went nowhere.”

In a supercharged political landscape with MAGA evangelicals, “Hindus for Harris” and rising numbers of Muslims rallying behind Donald Trump, Jill Stein and Cornel West, it may come as a surprise that some people of faith in the U.S. abstain from voting entirely — or at least don’t take sides. 

But understanding their reservations and motivations, experts say, might speak more to the current state of U.S. politics than any partisan zealotry coming from voters of faith this election cycle.

While MAGA evangelicals — and those who oppose them — get a lot of play in the headlines, there is a steady tradition of Christians abstaining from partisan politics completely, explained Michael Budde, a professor at DePaul University, a private Catholic university in Chicago, who teaches on religion and politics.

“Not all Christians have made their peace with secular powers,” Budde said. Whether it’s the early centuries of the Christian era and monastic dissenters in the desert, those who refused to take up the sword within the church after the Roman Emperor Constantine, or the Catholic Worker Movement and people like Daniel Berrigan, a Catholic Jesuit priest who vigorously opposed the Vietnam War, multiple Christian communities have resisted allowing empires and states to borrow their legitimacy from the church. In addition to these pacifist traditions, there are fundamentalist Christian groups that teach that Christians are not of this world and are not to become involved in its politics.

And this election cycle, a larger number of U.S. Christians seem set to sidestep the ballot box in accordance with their interpretation of the Bible and their evaluation of current politics. According to research from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, 104 million “people of faith” might abstain from voting this year — including up to 32 million churchgoing Christians. As political scientist Robert Postic wrote for the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, “given short-term political dynamics or the candidates available, declining to vote can be the best way to reflect our values and acknowledge the importance of an election.”

 “Sometimes, the right choice,” Postic wrote, “may be not voting.”

How Latter-day Saints, Muslims in Michigan, Black Protestants or Latino Catholics might sway the 2024 election

In the lead-up to the 2024 elections, white Christian nationalists and “MAGA evangelicals” are sucking up a lot of the air in the religion media space.

And for good reason. As Tobin Miller Shearer of the University of Montana wrote for The Conversation: 

In the 2016 race, evangelical voters contributed, in part, to Republican nominee Donald Trump’s victory. Those Americans who identified as “weekly churchgoers” not only showed up at the polls in large numbers, but more than 55% of them supported Trump. His capture of 66% of the white evangelical vote also tipped the scales in his favor against his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

Evangelicals look set to support the former president in outsized numbers again — with a Pew Research Survey indicating 82% of white evangelical Protestants are likely to vote for Trump in November — and a significant “subset of Christian nationalists, which some suggest amounts to roughly 10% of the US population,” are rallying around him as they push “for Christianity to be the official, dominant religion of the US.”

But religious Americans from other backgrounds and traditions, such as Catholics, mainliners and Black Protestants — whom Bob Smietana and Jack Jenkins of RNS called “swing state faith voters” — could also prove critical to electoral victory due to their influence in key swing states. 

In this edition of ReligionLink, we offer a roundup of stories, perspectives and sources from a broad swath of faith constituencies around the U.S., addressing questions such as: How might Hindus be approaching local and state elections? How might Muslims in swing states prove decisive for the Electoral College? How might the nonreligious approach key ballot issues differently from others? 

Religion, Immigration and the 2024 Elections

Over the last six months, I’ve been covering religion and immigration for Sojourners Magazine.

I traveled to Tijuana, Mexico, Lampedusa, Italy, southern Arizona and downtown Los Angeles to hear from migrants making their way. I heard from Muslim aid workers on the front lines providing sanctuary and nuns serving the vulnerable asylum seekers living on the streets of Skid Row. I sat with mothers weeping over their children and praying for safe passage at a cemetery just meters from the bollard-steel border wall that rips through the Sonoran wilderness like a rust-colored wound. 

In my latest for ReligionLink and as part of my “What You Missed Without Religion Class” series at Patheos, I reflect on what you need to know about faith and immigration ahead of the 2024 elections.