Opinion

All aboard the Mormon women’s history cruise
By Jana Riess — March 15, 2023
(RNS) — Sign me up for that.

A reading list for seminarians and other Catholic conservatives
By Thomas Reese — March 14, 2023
(RNS) — Books changed my life. They can change yours too.

Georgia may be turning purple. It’s definitely turning green.
By Marqus Cole — March 14, 2023
(RNS) — Georgia’s clean energy transition is doing what some may deem a miracle — getting Republicans and Democrats to agree.

Five charts that explain the desperate turn to MAGA among conservative white Christians
By Robert P. Jones — March 14, 2023
(RNS) — White Christians’ attempt to halt their demographic slide has fostered two narratives of American life.

The women who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and sustained a movement for social change
By Vicki Crawford — March 14, 2023
(The Conversation) — From family to grassroots activists, these are some of the women who shaped MLK’s vision and campaigns.

How Frances Willard shaped feminism by leading the 19th-century temperance movement
By Christopher H. Evans — March 14, 2023
(The Conversation) — A historian highlights the role of Frances Willard, who helped found the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, one of the major social movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

What is a pogrom? Israeli mob attack has put a century-old word in the spotlight
By Joshua Shanes — March 14, 2023
(The Conversation) — A scholar of Jewish history explains how the term ‘pogrom’ lives in Jewish collective memory and why its use can be highly contentious.

Nazi orders for Jews to wear a star were hateful, but far from unique – a historian traces the long history of antisemitic badges
By Flora Cassen — March 14, 2023
(The Conversation) — Badges and other wearable markings had a long history of being used to target Jewish people in Europe.

Remembering Chaim Topol — and how ‘Fiddler’ reflected American Judaism
By Jeffrey Salkin — March 14, 2023
(RNS) — The inside story of ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ reveals some deep truths about American Judaism.

Young people flourish where faith leaders see color
By Nabil Tueme — March 13, 2023
(RNS) — If you ask young people to leave race at home, you might as well tell them to stay home, too.

The ‘double effects’ of men behaving badly
By Phyllis Zagano — March 13, 2023
(RNS) — How some bishops and lay groups have become the de facto Catholic morality police.

30 years later, Waco siege still resonates – especially among anti-government extremists
By Art Jipson and Paul J. Becker — March 13, 2023
(The Conversation) — Waco has been used as a rallying cry for decades, two scholars of domestic extremism explain.

Robots are performing Hindu rituals — some devotees fear they’ll replace worshippers
By Holly Walters — March 13, 2023
(The Conversation) — The use of AI and robotic technology in worship is raising profound questions about its long-term consequences. Will it lead to the betterment of society or replace practitioners?

Why the pronouns used for God matter
By Annie Selak — March 13, 2023
(The Conversation) — With the Church of England considering gender-neutral language to refer to God, a feminist theologian explains how Christianity has historically recognized many pronouns to refer to the divine.

‘Spiritual exemplars’ change the media narrative about religion
By Donald E Miller — March 10, 2023
(RNS) — We need stories that capture the power of religion and spirituality to change society for the better.