Religion and public policy

Erasmus

Notes on the interplay between religion and policy, in the spirit of the Dutch Renaissance humanist and scholar

The future of the Catholic church

A high-noon moment for Pope Francis over the Amazon

Ideological rifts widen as Catholic bishops ponder endangered forests and married priests

Islam and politics

Why American Muslims lean leftwards for 2020

Islam’s followers are not so much firebrands as nomads in search of a home

Turbulent priests

Taking sides in the Orthodox Church’s battles over Russia and Ukraine

Conflicts within Slavic Orthodoxy are having some strange side effects

History, revisited

Everywhere in chains

Why Islamic debates over slavery matter to everyone

Religion and free speech

Blasphemy laws are quietly vanishing in liberal democracies

Despite the abolition of outdated laws, a culture of freedom is failing to take hold

Spire straits

English cathedrals attract the devout, the dotty and darker forces

A cherished tradition of independence can lead to abuses and poor management

Christianity and Marxism

Church leaders in central and eastern Europe remain surprisingly loth to condemn their old adversary

The extraordinary events of 1989 are half-forgotten as clerics look elsewhere

Religion and vulnerability

Why charismatic Christianity is popular with migrants

It offers a fixed point in a transitory world

Religion and British politics

Boris Johnson’s confusing and contradictory religious history

From the Roman to the Abrahamic, the prime minister’s spiritual history is a mess

The Latter-day Saints

Overcoming the Mormon legacy on race

Building bridges between an anti-racist movement and a conservative faith

Russia, Belarus and Orthodoxy

Why Vladimir Putin took an atheist to an ancient monastery

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus accompanied his Russian counterpart to the magnificent monastery of Valaam this week

Religious employers

Why much is at stake in a tale of teachers in Middle America

A new sensitivity over discrimination in the secular world is making it harder for religious institutions to apply a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy