The Opening of the Protestant Mind
How Anglo-American Protestants Embraced Religious Liberty
During the mid-17th century, Anglo-American Protestants described Native American ceremonies as savage devilry, Islamic teaching as violent chicanery, and Catholicism as repugnant superstition. By the mid-18th century, they described amicable debates with Algonquian religious leaders, conversations with Muslim scholars, and encounters with priests in Catholic Canada and Europe.
What explains this poignant shift?
Wonder, enchantment and the epic of evolution
As a biology faculty member, Professor Emerita Ursula Goodenough invited non-science majors to understand and reflect on the history of life on Earth. The second edition of her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved, brings the wondrous saga to a new audience.
To love boldly
In 32 years as spiritual leader of the CSC, Fr. Gary Braun has made a lasting impact by challenging generations of WashU students — Catholic and non-Catholic — to be better. But it’s nearing time for him to begin a new chapter.
SCOTUS ruling hints at why religious freedom means living with views we don’t like
While the ruling in the Maine case is unsurprising given the court’s recent decisions around freedom of religion, some of the rhetoric around the case misrepresents the role of constitutional protections for religion in a pluralistic society, said John Inazu, expert on law and religion at Washington University in St. Louis.
Finding your own answers
In the course ‘The Good Life Between Religion and Politics,’ students learn the importance of asking questions about what constitutes a well-lived life.
The Laws of Hammurabi
At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions
The Laws of Hammurabi is one of the earliest law codes, dating from the eighteenth century BCE Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). It is the culmination of a tradition in which scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a repertoire of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The book describes how […]
Van Engen co-edits book on emotion in religion
Abram Van Engen, professor of English in Arts & Sciences, has co-edited a new collection of essays about religious feeling in early American history and literature.
Cultural backlash: Is LGBTQ progress an attack on Christianity?
New research by Clara L. Wilkins and Lerone Martin in Arts & Sciences explains why some Christians view recent LGBTQ progress as a threat and offers possible interventions to reduce such all-or-nothing beliefs.
Fear of a Muslim Planet
Global Islamophobia in the New World Order
Human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar, AB ’99, JD ’03, takes on Islamophobia through the lens of the brutal Christchurch slaughter. In March 2019, a heavily-armed white supremacist walked into two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and slaughtered 51 innocent Muslim worshippers while broadcasting on Facebook Live for the world to see. After the Christchurch mosque massacre, […]
Feeling Godly
Religious Affections and Christian Contact in Early North America
In 1746, Jonathan Edwards described his philosophy on the process of Christian conversion in “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.” For Edwards, a strict Congregationalist, true conversion is accompanied by a new heart and yields humility, forgiveness, and love—affections that work a change in the person’s nature. But, how did other early American communities understand religious affections […]
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