(REVIEW) Visitors to Canterbury Cathedral in the U.K. have been surprised to find that parts of the building’s majestic architecture are currently daubed with eye-catching graffiti. But this is not the work of vandals. The colorful graphics are part of a thought-provoking art installation centered on the idea of asking questions to God.
Read MoreBeneath a church sanctuary, a basement is filled with skeletons of over 40,000 individuals arranged in horrifying ways — it is like a scene out of a scary movie, but it is entirely real. For Christians, memento mori — a Latin phrase meaning “remember you must die” — is inescapable.
Read More(REVIEW) “The Exorcist” has always stuck out to me as a movie because of its universality, its appeal to both the religious and secular. “Exorcistic” is a byproduct of the movie’s lasting influence in media that certainly leaves a wild impression of its own. It’s worth seeing if you want something to put you into the Halloween spirit.
Read MoreIn a lawsuit, Chandler Moore, the Grammy Award-winning worship singer, cut ties with manager Norman Gyamfi. “I’ve made the bittersweet decision to end my relationship with Maverick City Music,” Moore said on Instagram. “When we started Mav, I was grateful to have community and belonging while fulfilling my dream of making music that would help people experience God.”
Read MoreSix-time Grammy winner Amy Grant, who gained much of her notoriety through her Christian songs, has agreed to a legal settlement about a church founded by her great-grandfather in downtown Nashville. The boarded-up building, now worth at least $11 million, served for decades as the Central Church of Christ, founded in 1925 by A.M. Burton.
Read MoreThe history of San Francisco Church in Valparaíso is so intertwined with the Chilean port city that when a fire burned down the building in 2013, one neighbor felt like she was losing a friend. The city owes its nickname “Pancho” to the church (men named “Francisco” are often called “Pancho” in Latin America).
Read MoreWhen people say they “lose themselves in music,” it can describe the spiritual-like experience of entering a trance or altered state evoked by rhythm or melody. In various cultures and faith traditions, music acts as a bridge to spirituality. Interpretive choreography, beating on drums, humming and chanting — all create an atmosphere that draws people into connection with something greater.
Read MoreIt’s not just modern, but historic art also plays a role in this rebirth. In 2024, Winchester Cathedral collaborated with the National Gallery on a groundbreaking immersive exhibition centered around a 16th century masterpiece by Flemish artist Jan Gossaert. It marked the first time the National Gallery undertook a touring digital facsimile exhibition. Churches, however, have long been involved in art.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Any sounding music is not silent and, in human terms, silence is largely metaphorical, since we cannot escape sound. But Pärt’s silence is different. It is spiritual stillness communicated through his musical formulas but made sensible through the action of human performers. It is a composer’s silence as he gets out of the way of a sacred text’s musicality to communicate its truth.
Read MoreThe only synagogue ever designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright looks like a sanctuary pulled from scripture and pinned to a leafy street corner in Philadelphia. This is Beth Sholom, a shul shaped like a mountain — literally — 110 feet high and wrapped in 1,500 glass panels. Wright wanted it to evoke Sinai — not just a memory of revelation, but the possibility of one.
Read MoreActivist Hooman Khalili hopes to inspire Iranian women to resist abuse and terrorism through murals displayed on college campuses across the United States. The murals, he said, are meant to spark civil discourse — especially among students — and draw attention to the fight for human rights in Iran at a time when all the focus is on Gaza and Ukraine.
Read More(REVIEW) “The Invisibility of Religion in Contemporary Art” is a deeply academic tome. Its 480 pages includes an extensive set of endnotes that will no doubt prove invaluable to future scholarship, while its large appendix is itself a significant resource. Yet, with Anderson’s lucid and well-informed writing style, this book will be accessible to a wide audience of readers.
Read MoreChristians at the Bouldercrest Church of Christ invited the devil into their midst. This time, he went down to Georgia not for a fiddle-playing contest, as the famous Charlie Daniels Band song goes, but for an interview.That was the premise of a recent play the church hosted, “The Art of Influence: An Interview with the Devil.”
Read MoreA leading academic who has called for the return of precious artifacts “stolen by Pope Pius XI and his missionaries” from Indigenous First Nations communities has urged Pope Leo XIV and the Vatican Museums to “rethink their colonial mindset.” Gloria Bell said the Vatican continues to falsely “refer to everything” in their collection as a “gift.”
Read MoreOn a summer night in 2023, Rajah Bose boarded the midnight train out of Spokane, Washington, with John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charlie” in his backpack and a burning question that he couldn’t articulate. The 45-year-old photojournalist and musician was embarking on a 9,000-mile journey across America by rail, from the Pacific Northwest to New York and, finally, back home.
Read MoreIn the second installment of “And So It Goes,” HBO’s new two-part documentary about Billy Joel, the Piano Man explains why he wore a yellow Star of David in August 2017, during his residency at Madison Square Garden, in his most extensive filmed account of his family’s experience in the Holocaust. “No matter what, I will always be a Jew,” he said.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Anime and Religious Identity: Cultural Aesthetics in Japanese Spiritual Worlds helps students explore questions of meaning, ethics and belief that anime brings to life. It examines themes such as what happens when the past resurfaces? What does it mean to carry the weight of responsibility? And how can suffering become a path to transformation?
Read More(REVIEW) The devotional art of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism share many similarities, even some gods. To understand why, you need to examine the ancient Indian origins of these religions and their iconographies, which can be traced back to the powerful nature spirits and divine serpents once worshipped across the subcontinent.
Read More(ESSAY) When I began exploring the history of Christianity and the art it inspired, I had no idea it would lead me to one of the closest friendships of my life. That friend was Alexei Mihailovich Lidov, a world-renowned scholar of Byzantine art and architecture. The path to that friendship began in 1999, when our family traveled to Turkey for the first time.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Bono has never been backwards in coming forward, especially when it comes to God. He doesn’t mumble about “spiritual energy” or dodge the name of Jesus. He says it straight: “The Son of God.” He talks about Christ carrying his shame, not because it sounds poetic, but because he believes it. His faith isn’t necessarily neat or polished, but it's real.
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