The Jewish High Holy Days commemorate concepts such as renewal, forgiveness, freedom and joy. Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

What are the Jewish High Holy Days? A look at Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and a month of celebrating renewal and moral responsibility

Sept. 1, 2021

Religious calendars and festivals can force people to encounter certain ideas in the year.

A Jewish family gathers in person and over video conferencing for Passover celebrations in 2020. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

This Passover, as in the past, will be a time to recognize tragedies and offer hope for the future

April 7, 2021

Jewish families will gather for Passover this year in circumstances that will, like the celebration itself, reflect on dark times while holding out for better to come.

Joe Biden at the National Prayer Breakfast

How the National Prayer Breakfast became an opportunity for presidents and faith leaders alike to push their political agendas

Feb. 5, 2021

Since Eisenhower, every sitting U.S. president has attended the breakfast at least once during his term.

POOL PHOTO BY ANDREW HARNIK

From Biden’s giant Bible to Christian flags waved by rioters, ‘religion’ means different things to different people and different eras

Jan. 21, 2021

A similar complexity appears in the history of early Christianity in how religion functioned, both in terms of rituals and in the use of the Latin term it derives from.

Exit, stage religious right. AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

In Mike Pence, US evangelicals had their ‘24-karat-gold’ man in the White House. Loyalty may tarnish that legacy

Jan. 6, 2021

Pence’s religious and political biography mirrors key political and religious shifts over the past 40 years.

Remote church service

COVID-19 has shone a light on the millennia-old balance between public and private worship

Oct. 23, 2020

As religious services went online to protect congregants from the coronavirus, a paradox emerged: Worshipers were connected via the internet to a potentially wide community, but it felt like a more private affair.

People wearing masks and social distancing at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes on May 30, 2020. Laurent Dart/AFP via Getty Images

Online Christian pilgrimage: How a virtual tour to Lourdes follows a tradition of innovation

July 27, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has caused unprecedented disruptions to many religious activities The Catholic Church held what is being termed as the first online pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes in France. Earlier this spring, for the first time in its 162-year existence the shrine was closed as...

Civil unrest

A justification for unrest? Look no further than the Bible and the Founding Fathers

June 4, 2020

Martin Luther King did not call for violence, but said “peace is not merely the absence of this tension, but the presence of justice"

Mediterranean

Mediterranean studies seminar booms despite pandemic

May 21, 2020

After seminar moved online, enrollment more than doubles The pandemic did not cut enrollment in a summer seminar hosted by the CU Mediterranean Studies Group and the Mediterranean Seminar. Quite the opposite, in fact. Brian Catlos The summer skills seminar, held from May 12-14, is dedicated to the study of...

Passover image

Virtual Passover? Judaism has a long history of ritual innovation

April 7, 2020

The ability for modern religious communities to adapt and innovate rituals in light of circumstances, then, has deep and very productive roots

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