Religion Unplugged

Earlier this year, Pew Research published the results of a study on religious diversity around the world. While the U.S. didn’t even break the top 10 for most religiously diverse when all nations studied were taken into account, it ranked #1 in religious diversity out of the most populous countries. The United States certainly has a Christian tilt and a sizable population of nones. But, go to any...

George Washington is a man of a mythological stature. A stalwart man of war, 6’2” with animal teeth and a seemingly endless supply of stories where he cheated death , Washington’s role is so much more than just a founding father or first president. From the $1 bill to the capital to the busiest motor vehicle bridge in the world, Washington’s name and image are everywhere in the USA. Washington is...

In recent years, “Christian Nationalism” has become a ubiquitous term in American political discussion. It is said by many with fear and loathing, and by others with great excitement and conviction. Among the enthusiasts include Doug Wilson , who is the pastor of Pete Hegseth , the United States’ Secretary of War. And it’s not just Hegseth who has ties to the ideology, Mike Johnson, Speaker of the...

Religion and death, for many of us, go hand in hand. It is our faith that often shapes what we believe happens when we die and, perhaps just as importantly, what we ought to do while we still live. In fact, if a belief system does not ask us to consider our death and what it means for us—if it avoids the subject and keeps mortality at arm’s length, it is almost certainly not a religion at all. The...

According to Pew Research Center, nearly 75% of Black Americans identify as Christian. It’s well known that many of the first African American Christians were first exposed to Christianity in the midst of enslavement. This exposure could have been used as a tactic for control by enslavers or as a genuine attempt to lead individuals to salvation by missionaries. But, whether conversion happened out...

Last week, Pope Leo cautioned developers and political leaders about the potential for exploitation in Artificial Intelligence development by comparing the AI race to the depravity of slavery. His wording was so strong, that he even called for AI to be “disarmed.” In the wake of Leo’s words, Christians around the world have taken a closer look at what it might mean to engage with artificial intell...

“If the learned and worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind to inhale the fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding heart would apprehend the meaning of true liberty, and discover the secret of undisturbed peace and absolute composure.” Those words were penned 200 years ago by Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í faith. It was for words like these and other beliefs deemed...

There are currently 15,000 open cases of unidentified persons in the United States. Bodies are unable to be identified for a variety of reasons including severe mutilation, significant decomposition, no history of medical care or a lack of resources.  In the vast majority of situations, DNA testing can do a great deal of heavy lifting, but sometimes even this can be unsuccessful On November 24, 19...

In C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity he says: “the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time” This idea—that the point of the church is to make disciples is, at its core, not a highly contested one. But ideas about the way disciple...

This week marks one year since Cardinal Robert Prevost became Pope Leo XIV. The late Cardinal Francis George who once presided over Leo’s hometown of Chicago famously said that there would never be an American Pope until the United States went into political decline. Whether Leo’s election to the papacy confirms this decline or proves Cardinal George incorrect, the reality of an American pope came...

This July, the United States will celebrate its 250th year as an independent nation. The Founding Fathers established the U.S. on the foundation of the ideals they believed in.  The Declaration of Independence famously says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Li...

At Religion Unplugged, we talk a lot about how faith shows up in modern movies and tv shows. And, more and more, we are noticing a positive shift. Movies about religion are getting better funding, booking high profile actors and holding their own at the box office. One of the projects, that fits this category is Amazon’s House of David.  “House of David” follows the Biblical epic that is the life...

Categorizing those who do violence is a messy business. What one writer might call the actions of a terrorist, another might refer to as the work of a freedom fighter. The very individuals who are called heroes, warriors and revolutionaries by some, can be categorized as villains, murderers, and radicals by another. But when the morality of a violent person is highly controversial or just ambiguou...

When you picture an American church building, what do you think of?  Is it a gothic, palatial cathedral that dwarfs its neighboring buildings and carries with it an air of ancient mystery? Is it a small, white chapel with a sharp steeple and a quiet humility about its presence? Or does an American church conjure up a visual that isn’t all that glorious and isn’t all that quaint—something like a st...

It’s been 3 weeks since the United States and Israel attacked Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. And, for 3 weeks, rockets have flown across the Middle East in all directions. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iraq have kept their guard up as different assets are targeted. As these oil-rich nations are thrown into turmoil, gas prices in the U.S. have gone up by nearly a dollar in the last m...

Many of the most enduring displays of human artistic greatness have been, in some way, religious. The Egyptian pyramids were constructed to accommodate the needs of a king’s soul after his death. The oldest architectural structures still standing today are almost exclusively temples, and archaeologists hypothesize that many ancient cave paintings depict religious scenes and images. As history prog...

2025 was a big year for film. Theaters drew people in for a wide variety of stories. Moviegoers saw thrillers like Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” and Josh Safdie’s “Marty Supreme.” They saw the returns of beloved characters with James Gunn’s “Superman” and James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire & Ash.” They embraced the strange with “Bugonia,” the romantic with “Materialists” and the...

On January 3rd of this year, in the middle of the night, U.S. special forces broke into the Home of Venezuela’s President, Nicolás Maduro, and abducted him and his wife. U.S. military presence in Venezuela had been creeping up for months—with much of it being attributed to cartel suppression. But, when President Trump posted an image on Truth Social depicting Maduro in a Nike Sweatsuit and a blind...

Christian movies have a pretty negative reputation. They are criticized for being cheesy, preachy, poorly acted, poorly written, and generally prioritizing lesson-teaching over entertainment or artistic excellence. But, in recent years, their Rotten Tomatoes scores have been on a steady uptick. The critical reviews contain more of the nuance given to secular films, and, en masse, viewers seem to b...

This year’s Winter Olympic Games are filled with Jewish athletes. They can be found in hockey goals, cross country slopes, bobsleds, and skating competitions. But, despite a robust representation in Milan and an even more significant representation in the Paris games of 2024, the stereotype that Jews are bad at sports has not fully vanished. The stereotype is a very old one, but it was probably ma...

In the Apostle Paul’s 1st Biblical letter to Timothy, Paul writes that Christ came into the world to save sinners. He follows that up by stating that he is the foremost sinner. This is sometimes translated as Paul being “chief of sinners” and even as him being, plainly, “the worst.” It’s this idea that Christian actor, writer, and podcaster Nathan Clarkson uses to justify the title of his new book...

South Africa has a sexual abuse crisis. And while many of these attacks occur on the streets or in the home, every month, several cases of rape take place in churches and are perpetrated by pastors. The assaulted individuals come from every ethnic group, age, social class, and even gender. For over a decade, tens of thousands of South Africans have been violated in their communities. To better und...

In 2025, the whole world watched as Chicago native Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope.  Again, everyone watched as Conservative Christian Apologist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University. But while religious news events like these were known world round, other important stories are being covered all the time by journalists like Bobby Ross...

Religion sociologist and Religion Unplugged contributor Ryan Burge sits down with culture critic Joseph Holmes to discuss Ryan's book "The Vanishing Church" and why the church has lost its ability to bring Americans together. 

The cargo shipping industry is vital to the sustenance of the modern world. However, the millions of mariners who make the system possible often go unnoticed by the masses. For nearly 200 years, The Seamen's Church Institute has worked hard to ensure that seafarers do not feel invisible. Matthew Peterson speaks with members of the organization to understand how they serve mariners and why the...