Religion Dispatches

The politics of hate doesn’t fall from the sky. In the U.S., it’s deliberately created and sustained by rituals and themes from Christian theology that date back to the time of the Crusades, when the idea of “holy” war replaced just war, and enemies—especially Jews and Muslims—were demonized as agents of Satan.Recently, a Vacation Bible School skit at a Lexington, Kentucky, church drew national attention after a video showed men dressed as soldiers entering a sanctuary carrying airsoft-style rifles and “executing” a person who portrays the devil. The murder occurs on the chancel steps as a

At its annual summit, Christian Zionists doubled down on apocalyptic war while interfaith activists reclaimed liberation theology in the streets of DC.

How low is too low when it comes to testosterone levels? When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that U.S. service members ages 30 and older will have their testosterone tested every year, neither he nor the Pentagon specified what level of the hormone would be considered “low” enough to require treatment—a telling omission, since where “low” begins depends on the lab conducting the test and the guidelines your doctor follows.The announcement lands amid a national testosterone craze: Prescriptions have climbed to nearly 12 million in 2025, up 154% since 2020, and fastest among

Is There a Relationship Between Christian Nationalism and Cyclospora? A story about big business in America getting what it wants — and letting everyone else pay the price.

Those connecting street violence to Mamdani's criticism of Israel have little to say about the genocidal statements of Israeli officials.

“I know it sounds corny,” writer Dave Zirin tells Religion Dispatches, “but part of Howard Zinn’s secret—the reason he saw hope as a discipline—was that he saw life as an adventure, with triumphs and tragedies, ups and downs. He valued the journey. He believed—and I wish people would tattoo this on their brains—that the way things currently are is not necessarily the way they’re going to be forever.”Zinn’s belief in the power of people to come together and organize to win economic, racial, and gender justice sustained him and led him to teach, write, and make what congress member and civil

In a historic (and extraordinarily close) race, primary voters in Michigan have selected

As scholars and experts have often noted, conspiracy theories proliferate when, in the face of a complex situation or event, people are offered easy answers that tend to confirm preexisting beliefs. So when tens of thousands of Moroccans surged into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta last week, and officials from both nations pointed to a tangle of mundane and depressing causes, we shouldn’t have been surprised that, within hours, a much tidier story had taken hold: Israel did it.The theory, laid out breathlessly across X and Instagram—and certainly not limited to the fringes—held that Israel and

In recent months, the Southern Baptist Convention adopted a resolution describing abortion as sinful; Vice President JD Vance, comparing abortion to child sacrifice, told March for Life attendees that the nation faces a choice between remaining “under God” or returning to paganism; and Pope Leo XIV told the Spanish Parliament that defending “the unborn” is a “goal of civilization.” Together, these messages reinforce a familiar impression: that religion and support for abortion rights have always stood in opposition. But history tells a more complicated story.Long before Roe v. Wade, ministers

The erasure of the Founding Father's role in some of the nation's most heinous crimes is both hard to stomach and how we got here in the first place.