cult/new religious movements

Over the last year, I’ve scrolled past social media posts by members of diverse religious backgrounds and political opinions. However, because my ethnographic research is based in Mormon…

Have you noticed how common it is for right-wingers to describe things they oppose in terms of religion? Back in April, for example, Andrew Torba, the CEO of Gab (the social media platform of choice…

Daniel Silliman’s new book, Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith, is an engaging history of evangelical fiction, focused on the infrastructure of publishers…

Still looking for a fun and exciting summer activity? Have you thought about ghost hunting? I earned my PhD studying ghost hunters in the contemporary United States. Ghost hunters are people, often…

In the twentieth century the word “ cult ” (originally meaning “worship”) became a pejorative word that people apply to a group or movement that they do not like and perhaps fear. The word “cult”…

In state legislatures across the country, Republicans are systematically making it more difficult to vote, premised on the “Big Lie” that voter fraud was behind President Joe Biden’s election. The…

Have you heard rumors about a cult called The Disciples of the Ram? Ever hear of Katie Lincoln, the young girl from Danvers, Massachusetts, who was stabbed 22 times by her friend in a Satanic slaying…

As I noted previously here on RD , when it comes to covering American Christianity in general and conservative, mostly white evangelicals in particular, legacy media outlets like the New York Times…

“Are imperfect people welcome in the health freedom movement?” asks an email sitting presumptuously at the top of my inbox, piquing my interest just enough not to delete immediately. Below the banner…

A new report from PRRI on religious attitudes toward Covid vaccination contains much that makes intuitive sense, along with a few surprises. There’s some actual good news in the poll, along with some…