The talented staff members at the Boston College University Libraries have created a veritable bevy of wonderful digital collections. They cover topics like the urban infrastructure of Boston to this one on the vast brocade of liturgical objects. Here visitors can make their way through over 1,100 images related to the Catholic faith, including decorative pins, robes, candlesticks, and other...

In 1907, Mary Binney Wheeler was born into a prominent Philadelphia family. She was quite talented in the musical and terpsichorean arts; at the age of 17, she performed at Carnegie Hall as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. Later in life, she developed a deep and abiding interest in South Asian art and culture. Over the course of 14 trips to the area, she took over 9,000 photographs in...

During the Middle Ages the authenticity of important documents was established through the use of a seal. These seals were images carved into a matrix which, when pressed into a soft substance, left behind an inverse of the picture on the seal. This remarkable collection of medieval seals comes from the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame, and the online exhibit was constructed by a...

Released in January 2021, this Pew Research Center report discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious beliefs. Relying on data from a summer 2020 survey of "14 economically developed countries," researchers found that "nearly 3-in-10 U.S. adults say the outbreak has boosted their faith," and "about 4-in-10 say it has tightened family bonds." Throughout the report, readers will find...

From triptychs to mixed media, the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA) in New York seeks to "re-contextualize Judeo-Christian images for the American public, presenting them in a way that sheds light on their original function and continued relevance." They do so with curiosity and intelligence, and their website functions as a nice complement to their brick and mortar presence in Midtown Manhattan....

The National Study of Youth and Religion was a multi-year sociological study designed to explore how American youth engage in religious and spiritual practice and how religion and spirituality influence youth. The research project was conducted between 2001 and 2015 and headed by sociologists Christian Smith of the University of Notre Dame and Lisa Pearce at the University of North Carolina at...

The North American Jewish Data Bank (NAJDB) was created in 1986 by the Council of Jewish Federations and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Part of their mission is to "provide empirical survey data sets about the North American Jewish community" and also to "encourage academicians, students, communal professionals and others to utilize Data Bank holdings." This is, in part,...

As part of the fine NPR radio program series, Radio Expeditions, reporter John Burnett recently travelled to West Africa to learn about the ancient religion of Vodun, or as it is called in the West, voodoo. Unfortunately, what most people in the United States think about this religion is based on sensational (and generally totally inaccurate) accounts that one finds in various Hollywood movies or...

Working together with the generous support of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the Harvard University Library's Open Collections Program has digitized hundreds of Islamic manuscripts, maps, and published texts from the institution's vast holdings. All told, the project currently includes over 145,000 pages dating from the 13th to the 20th centuries CE. The documents are from many regions, including...

PBS may not have cornered the entire market on thoughtful and intelligent television programming, but they certainly have garnered the lion's share of this type of material. One of the network's most recent programs (and this website which accompanies it), The Question of God, is certainly proof positive of this fact. The four-hour series (based on a popular Harvard course taught by Dr. Armand...