Sacred & Profane

Today on the show, we dive into one the best-selling books in the early United States: a massive compendium of world religions. It's a work that's incomplete, and sometimes incorrect, but also one that shows how the first generation of Americans were exploring ideas about faith, tolerance, and religious pluralism. And almost as interesting as the book itself is its author, a woman who lived and died in greater Boston, but never stopped thinking of a much larger world.

We'll be returning with a third season soon. But we couldn't ignore the biggest story about religion in 2021 - the pro-Trump mob that stormed the US Capitol hoping to overturn a democratic election. Journalist and author Sarah Posner joins us and charts decades of racist, anti-government rhetoric and conspiracy theories from the religious right to explain how white evangelical Christians came to be a key part of the violent mob at the U.S. Capitol earlier this year.

There are hundreds of Confederate memorials across the U.S. With our colleague Jalane Schmidt, we explore an often overlooked part of their history: religion. Not only are these monuments often steeped in religious symbolism, white Christian communities also helped to build and maintain them. And we hear from a group of Christians here in Charlottesville wrestling with that legacy today.

On paper, France is an egalitarian society. The republican ideals of liberté, égalité and fraternité are carved into public buildings across the country. And formal equality is carved into French laws in other ways, including a policy that makes it illegal to collect information on residents’ race, ethnicity, or religion.That “colorblindness” has made it difficult for people of color to prove to the state that systemic racism and police brutality exist in a supposedly equal country.In our ongoing series highlighting documentaries by students here at UVA, grad student Bremen Donovan follows a group of community activists and lawyers who are fighting to prove discrimination exists in court in order to make France’s official equality a reality.

Across the country, protestors are putting their bodies at risk from police violence and the COVID-19 pandemic, with the hope of creating radical change. We spoke with our colleague Larycia Hawkins about the power—and the price—of embodied solidarity.

Graduate student Kevin Stewart Rose brings us the story of a Christian community dedicated to creating a more environmentally sustainable future, but unable to extract itself from our unsustainable present. Part of "Field Notes," our ongoing series dedicated to highlighting documentary work from students at UVA.

Last season. we explored the impact of an ancient artifact with Biblical connections: the Cyrus cylinder. Cyrus's proclamation may be ancient, but it has a lot of resonance in modern discussions of religious freedom, immigration, and national identity. Perhaps then it shouldn't come as a surprise that Cyrus himself has become a political symbol, as well. We're looking at two very different leaders who have become closely associated with Cyrus: the last Shah of Iran, and President Donald Trump.

We're returning to our ongoing series Field Notes, featuring documentary pieces from students here at UVA. Jason Evans explores how black women—leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement since the beginning—are shaped by their faith, even as they question many aspects of the traditional black church.

Santa Muerte. Holy Death. To outsiders, she's become a symbol of cartel driven violence in Mexico—a "narco-saint," worshiped only by traffickers, and venerated at crime scenes. To her followers, she's a protector with roots stretching back to the pre-Hispanic past.

Dr. Jessie Marroquín joins us to explore the complex history of the saint, now one of the fastest growing religious movements in Mexico and the Southwestern U.S.

Months before COVID-19 closed borders across Europe, the EU was already facing serious divisions. Evan Sandsmark sent us this report last summer on the cracks showing in the foundations of modern Austria—especially religion, which continues to be a fault line in European politics. Plus, we check in with Evan about what Europe looks like under lockdown today.