Reporters: So we hear that Americans are recently returning to religion, especially young people. That true? Reputable Pollsters: Nope. Reporters: Well, our vibes say yeah. So we’re just gonna do 100 articles and podcasts about how Americans are returning to religion.

I had such a great conversation with @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social and Andrew Aghapour about the amazing work they’re doing at The Religion Department! Listen now, and get involved in the awesome work they are up to @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social newbooksnetwork.com/the-religion...

Wikipedia now has higher standards than all universities

I love how Zoom constantly makes me decline help from their AI companion every fucking time I open the app for a routine meeting. Love it. Two enthusiastic user-experience thumbs up.

This is musicology.

New video! For centuries, Christians have tried to identify Gog and Magog with real nations…from the Soviet Union to modern China. But what (or who??) are Gog and Magog?: youtu.be/wh11CuVUZPY?...

another banger from @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh11...

This video was so much fun. I've never been so invested in learning about a fish. Kudos to Hank Green for making it so interesting: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR9M...

fwiw Americans are very bad at understanding that the 2 things you're not supposed to discuss - politics and religion - infuse literally everything that the country has done, is doing, and will do it's the water we swim in, which is why we don't see it

I taught a class on “hope” last year and the few theorists who’ve written on it all point out that hope is the harder choice - that despair is easy and too often fashionable

My Daoist Canon video I published forever ago has surged to become the second most viewed video on the channel over the last 72 hours. Did i miss a Daoist-themed news peg or something? Algorithms are weird.

Just watched the lovely work by @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social on ties between the sacred groves and the societies that form them, treasure them, and alter them. A useful reference for worldbuilders curious about the wilds. #indiedev #writing

“The sweeping study includes focus groups and interviews with K-12 students, parents, educators & tech experts in 50 countries…It found that using AI in education can ‘undermine children's foundational development’ and that ‘the damages it has already caused are daunting,’ though ‘fixable.’”

Only a few spots left for this!

After the huge success of last year's tour, I’m again leading an Ancient Christianity Turkey tour in May 2026! We’ll walk the streets of Ephesus, visit ancient churches and synagogues, and nerd out about ancient religion together. Spots are limited → www.wetravel.com/trips/ancien...

Why Psychedelics Feel So Religious | Entheogens Explained | Nebula @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social, As language and cultures change, the words people use to describe their experiences will change as well. We can only use the words we know based on our cultural background. nebula.tv/videos/relig...

Finishing up a video on the living descendants of Confucius. About 80 generations. Though historians doubt the genealogy’s historicity before 1055 CE.

It was wonderful to meet Simon recently, and really great to be mentioned in his latest opinion piece for the @financialtimes.com www.ft.com/content/afa5...

Honored to have my book *Religious Affects* discussed as part of this outstanding Religion for Breakfast video essay from @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social reviewing the evidence for religious behavior among animals!

After the huge success of last year's tour, I’m again leading an Ancient Christianity Turkey tour in May 2026! We’ll walk the streets of Ephesus, visit ancient churches and synagogues, and nerd out about ancient religion together. Spots are limited → www.wetravel.com/trips/ancien...

Dear friends and worthy enemies, next week I will be giving this online talk for those who might be interested, thanks to the good offices of @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social . It is a pay what you want event which will be live streamed and recorded. I will try not to say anything TOO seditious.

Already thinking of content for The Odyssey next year. What scholars of Homeric Greek literature and religion would you recommend?

I was an early adopter of the stock trading app Robinhood in 2013. Their whole thing was democratizing investing with zero-fee trades, and it honestly enabled a broke grad student like me to invest. But now, I get daily spam from them to gamble on sports and elections. Predatory, extractive bullshit

You can take my survey of contemporary Paganism, plus a number of other awesome seminars with brilliant scholars!

The Religion Department’s Black Friday sale is live! Study religion with real experts— live seminars, lectures, and guided readings. Get 25% off annual memberships with code BF25 at: religiondepartment.com/membership

Looks like YouTube is launching a "likeness detection" tool that will alert me if someone creates an AI video with my likeness. I'm sure there are downsides I'm not thinking of, but I'm glad YT is making an effort to protect against my face being used by AI. Next I'd like to see "voice detection."

Hey authors! Check to see if Anthropic stole your book to train their slop generator on. You’re entitled to $1500 per stolen Work. Look up your work, and if you’re in the database, file a claim secure.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com/lookup/

My latest AI feature dives into a nebulous movement of people sharing esoteric codes, manifestos, glyphs, diagrams, and poetry generated with chatbots, all of it based around theories of AI sentience and mysterious metaphors about spirals.

We are offering Coptic again!

Any experts on Chabad-Lubavitch here? Could use a fact-checker for a segment in my upcoming video.

Amazing. Good thing our government didn’t cut $500 million of mRNA research. Oh wait…

Apparently The Rapture is trending? Time to surface and oldie: No, the Rapture is not in the Bible: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvsj...

The Kabbalistic Tree of Baking Whereby divine Volume emanates to the lower vessels & is differentiated into units

I didn't realize how bad Google's enshittifictaion had become, until I switched my default browser to DuckDuckGo a few seconds ago. Holy shit, the AI overviews were degrading the user experience so much.

Definitely the best Iran headline of the year

A lot of the justifications point to the number of Religious Studies majors—but is this really how a dept’s value should be judged? In many RS departments in which I’ve taught, our courses have enormous enrollments & student interest +

apropos of the religious studies isn’t theology convos… my mom: i’m going to put [a copy of your book] by the altar. me: i don’t know that it’s good enough for god, mom. my dad: but god is all you write about. (i didn’t have the heart to tell them i don’t write about god, obvs.)

This is a neat video by @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social, relevant to the considerations we've been playing with as part of #MythAugust, and very much the sort of thing we mean when we talk about a world feeling "lived-in" on @worldbuildcast.bsky.social. youtu.be/pjrrUZeJMSo

we used to build household shrines to Going On The Computer and it's no coincidence that as we abandoned these we started straying further from god's light

Can any of my religious studies colleagues explain to me why Peter Thiel is so fascinated by the Antichrist? I need to know more

WITH 50% INCREASE, SHAKERS FASTEST GROWING RELIGION IN AMERICA

The Shaker population has risen by 50%: www.npr.org/2025/08/19/n...

I remember attending the Society of Biblical Literature’s annual meeting for the first time. I thought I had entered the twilight zone. So weird seeing papers being read word-for-word. We academics have normalized it as part of academic culture, but it is fucking weird.

Just imagine, extend their vision: the student preparing for that job interview, that interview isn't with a person, it's with a chatbot if the chatbot decides they get a job... wait I thought there weren't any jobs anymore, so is this a job where they just do prompting all day?

I’m curious to see the antithesis. A university with no AI. Only pen, paper, and discussion. I’d put my money on those graduates than those graduating from “A.I.-native universities”

The most controversial thing I think @katieturnerphd.com dropped in her recent "What did Jesus Wear?" webinar (organized by @andrewmarkhenry.bsky.social) was that Jesus may well have worn socks with sandals. In all seriousness, it was phenomenal and deeply educational.

Every 2 years, my Belgian hometown celebrates the Medieval witches that used to live there. There's a parade, fireworks, and at the end, the burning of a witch at the stake. There's a lot of folklore involved, including decorating your front garden with witches

What did Jesus wear—and why does it matter? Join @katieturnerphd.com for a deep dive into 2nd Temple period Jewish clothing and how dress shaped identity, power, and piety in Jesus’s world. Live online talk. Register here: www.religiondepartment.com/jesus-wear