For decades, the people of northern New Mexico have marked the Christian observance of Good Friday with a walking pilgrimage to the Santuario de Chimayó in the village of Chimayó, New Mexico.

Referring to themselves as Hispanos, or Nuevomexicanos, they have lived in the region for generations, tracing their descent from Spanish colonists who arrived to New Mexico in the 17th and 18th centuries. Nuevomexicanos’ Catholicism developed at the far northern frontier of the Spanish Empire; a scarcity of priests led to the flourishing of many popular devotions in New Mexico, including the pilgrimage to Chimayó.

Built in the early 1800s, the santuario is a small church, built of adobe bricks, with a unique feature: In a little room adjacent to the church’s central worship space, there is a hole in the floor, the “pocito,” filled with the sandy earth of the area.

For at least 200 years, Nuevomexicano Catholics have used dirt from the pocito for its purported miraculous healing qualities. They rub it on their aches and pains, they hold it to focus their prayers, and, historically, ingested it.

In 2015, I participated in the annual pilgrimage as part of the research for my book, “The Healing Power of the Santuario de Chimayó: America’s Miraculous Church.” The santuario’s story is not merely a curiosity but also a significant part of the shifting identity of the U.S. Catholic Church, which is on the verge of becoming majority-Latino.

Legendary origins of santuario’s holy dirt

The source of the pocito dirt’s power for Hispano pilgrims is linked to two images of Christ.

The first is a large crucifix called the Señor de Esquipulas, or Lord of Esquipulas. Named for a famous and much older Guatemalan Christ figure also known as the Señor de Esquipulas, the crucifix lies at the heart of the most common origin story for the santuario’s holy dirt.

The legend goes that in 1810, a Chimayó community leader and landowner named Bernardo Abeyta witnessed light coming out of the ground in one of his fields. Upon examination, he is said to have discovered the crucifix partially buried in the soil. He dug it up and brought it to the nearest church at the time, some 8 miles away.

The crucifix, however, is believed to have returned on its own to the hole in Abeyta’s field. Given this sign, Abeyta sought and received permission to build a chapel around the hole, a chapel today known as the Santuario de Chimayó.

The Señor de Esquipulas crucifix hangs on the main altar screen in the santuario, and the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has promoted the story of its miraculous provenance.

A second Christ image, however, is by far the more popular among Hispano pilgrims. The Santo Niño de Atocha is a depiction of the Christ child dressed as a medieval pilgrim and is popular throughout northern Mexico and the U.S.-Mexico border region. A statue of the Holy Child is ensconced in the santuario in a room adjacent to the pocito.

For pilgrims, a visit to the santuario typically includes time in prayer in front of the Holy Child, where they ask for healing and protection for themselves, their children and other loved ones. They take home dirt from the pocito as a reminder and vehicle of Christ’s power to answer their prayers.

The annual pilgrimage

Hispano residents in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado made pilgrimages to the santuario for healing throughout the 19th century, but the massive walking pilgrimage during Holy Week, culminating on Good Friday, did not begin until after World War II.

Hundreds of members of New Mexico’s 200th Coast Artillery had endured the 1942 Bataan Death March, in which thousands of U.S. and Filipino prisoners of war were forced by the Japanese Imperial Army to walk for miles through the Philippines. Many died from either torture or exhaustion.

Upon returning home, Nuevomexicano survivors organized a walking pilgrimage to the santuario in 1946 to commemorate their suffering and to mourn their lost comrades. This pilgrimage soon evolved into an annual observance not only for veterans but also for Hispano Catholics in general.

Today, hundreds of thousands of visitors come to the santuario throughout the year, but the pilgrimage during Holy Week – the week before the celebration of Easter – is the high point. Good Friday, the day on which Christians believe that Jesus was crucified and died, attracts approximately 30,000 walking pilgrims, some coming from as far away as Albuquerque, 90 miles away. Others choose shorter routes, including a popular 9-mile walk from the nearby town of Española.

Latino Catholics

The santuario’s popularity continues to rise along with the numbers of Latino Catholics in the U.S.

The demographic shift in the U.S. Catholic Church toward a Latino majority is well underway. Timothy Matovina, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, writes in his book, “Latino Catholicism: Tranformation in America’s Largest Church,” that Latinos represent one-third of all U.S. Catholics and make up more than half of the U.S. Catholic population under the age of 25.

He also notes that, because of Latino population growth, the proportion of Catholics in California and Texas has increased since 1990, while the proportion in Massachusetts and New York has dropped. This demographic shift means devotional sites, like the santuario, that have Latino Catholic origins and immense popularity can expect to grow in importance.

Brett Hendrickson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Every year, Christians from across the world visit Jerusalem for Easter week, walking the Via Dolorosa, the path Jesus is said to have walked on the way to his crucifixion over 2,000 years ago. Easter is the holiest of days, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Jesus is believed to have died, is one of the most sacred sites for Christians.

But not all Christians have equal access to these sites. If you are a Christian Palestinian living in the city of Bethlehem or Ramallah hoping to celebrate Easter in Jerusalem, you have to request permission from Israeli authorities well before Christmas – without guarantee that it will be granted. Those were the rules even before Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas launched an attack on southern Israel. The Israeli response to the Hamas attack has resulted in even more severe restrictions on freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank.

The site where the Bible says Jesus was born, in Bethlehem, and the place he died, in Jerusalem, are only about six miles apart. Google Maps indicates the drive takes about 20 minutes but carries a warning: “This route may cross country borders.” That is because Bethlehem is located in the West Bank, which is under Israeli military occupation, whereas Jerusalem is under direct Israeli control.

As a human rights scholar and Christian Palestinian who grew up in Bethlehem, I have many fond memories of Easter, which is a special time of gathering and celebration for Christian Palestinians. But I also saw firsthand how the military occupation has denied Palestinians basic human rights, including religious rights.

A season of celebration

Traditionally, Palestinian families and friends exchange visits, offering coffee, tea and a cookie stuffed with dates called “maamoul,” which is made only at Easter. A favorite tradition, especially for children, is taking a colorfully dyed hard-boiled egg in one hand and cracking it against an egg held by a friend. The breaking of the egg symbolizes the rise of Jesus from the tomb, the end of sorrow and the ultimate defeat of death itself and purification of human sins.

For Orthodox Christians, one of the most sacred rites of the year is the Holy Fire. On the day before Orthodox Easter, thousands of pilgrims and local Christian Palestinians of all denominations gather in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Greek and Armenian patriarchs enter the enclosure of the tomb in which Jesus was said to have been buried and pray inside. Those inside have reported that a blue light rises from the stone where Jesus lay, and forms into a flame. The patriarch lights candles from the flame, passing the fire from candle to candle among the thousands assembled in the church.

That same day, delegations representing Eastern Orthodox countries carry the flame in lanterns to their home countries via chartered planes to be presented in cathedrals in time for the Easter service. Palestinians also carry the flame using lanterns to homes and churches in the West Bank.

Deep roots in the Holy Land

Palestinian Christians trace their ancestry to the time of Jesus and Christianity’s founding in the region. Many churches and monasteries flourished in Bethlehem, Jerusalem and other Palestinian towns under Byzantine and Roman rule. Throughout this period and into the modern day, Christians, Muslims and Jews lived side by side in the region.

With the Islamic conquest in the seventh century, the majority of Christians gradually converted to Islam. However, the remaining Christian minority persisted in practicing their religion and traditions, including through the rule of the Ottoman empire, from 1516 to 1922, and to the present day.

The establishment of Israel in 1948 led to the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians, over 80% of the population, which is referred to by Palestinians as the “nakba,” or the catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands became refugees throughout the world, including many Christians.

Christians accounted for about 10% of the population in 1920 but constitute just 1% to 2.5% of Palestinians in the West Bank as of 2024, because of emigration. Christians in the West Bank belong to multiple denominations, including Greek Orthodox, Catholic and various Protestant denominations.

Thousands of Palestinians rely on the pilgrims and tourists who come to Bethlehem every year for their livelihoods. Two million people visit Bethlehem annually, and more than 20% of local workers are employed in tourism. Another important local industry is carved olive wood handicrafts. In 2004, the mayor of Beit Jala, which borders the city of Bethlehem, estimated 200 families in the area made their living from carving olive wood. Christians around the world have olive wood nativity sets or crosses carved by Palestinian artisans, a tradition that has been passed down through generations.

Impact of the occupation

The neighborhoods of the occupied West Bank have been fragmented by the building of over 145 illegal Israeli settlements. Both Christian and Muslim Palestinians face huge barriers to accessing holy sites in Jerusalem.

Bethlehem is encircled by several Jewish-only settlements, as well as the separation wall built in the 2000s, which snakes around and across the city. Across the West Bank, over 500 checkpoints and bypass roads designed to connect settlements have been built on Palestinian lands for the exclusive use of settlers. As of Jan. 1, 2023, there were over half a million settlers in the West Bank and another 200,000 in East Jerusalem.

The highways and bypass roads cut through the middle of towns and separate families. It is a system that former President Jimmy Carter and numerous human rights groups have described as “apartheid.” This system severely restricts freedom of movement and separates students from schools, patients from hospitals, farmers from their lands and worshipers from their churches or mosques.

Additionally, Palestinians have a different license plate color on their cars. They can’t use their vehicles to access private roads, which restricts their access to Jerusalem or Israel.

Going far beyond separate roads, Palestinians in the West Bank are subject to a separate legal system – a military judicial system – whereas Israeli settlers living in the West Bank have a civilian court system. This system allows indefinite detention of Palestinians without charge or trial based on secret evidence. All of these restrictions on freedom of movement disrupt the ability of Palestinians of all faiths to visit holy sites and gather for religious observances.

Prayers for peace

The barriers to celebrating Easter, especially this year, are not just physical but emotional and spiritual.

As of March 25, 2024, the number of Gazans killed in the war had surpassed 32,000– 70% of them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Israel has arrested 7,350 people in the West Bank, with over 9,000 currently in detention, up from 5,200 who were in Israeli prisons before Oct. 7, 2023.

Israel bombed the world’s third oldest church, St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, in Gaza in October 2023, killing 18 of the more than 400 people sheltering there.

Christian Palestinians in the West Bank suspended celebrations for Christmas in 2023 in hopes of bringing more attention to the death and suffering in Gaza. But the situation has only worsened. An estimated 1.7 million Gazans– over 75% of the population – had been displaced as of March 2024, half of them on the verge of famine.

Many Palestinians have long turned to their faith to endure the occupation and have found solace in prayer. That faith has allowed many to hold on to the hope that the occupation will end and the Holy Land will be the place of peace and coexistence that it once was. Perhaps that is when, for many, Easter celebrations will be truly joyful again.

Roni Abusaad, PhD does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

As Easter approaches, Christians around the world begin to focus on two of the central tenets of their faith: the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Other charismatic Jewish teachers or miracle workers were active in Judea around the same time, approximately 2,000 years ago. What set Jesus apart was his followers’ belief in his resurrection. For believers, this was not only a miracle, but a sign that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish messiah, sent to save the people of Israel from their oppressors.

But was the idea of a resurrection itself a unique belief in first-century Israel?

I am a scholar of ancient Judaism and its connection to the early Christian movement. The Christian concept of Jesus rising from the dead helped shape many of the faith’s key teachings and, ultimately, the new religion’s split from Judaism. Yet religious teachings about resurrection go back many centuries before Jesus walked the earth.

There are stories that likely predate early Jewish beliefs by many centuries, such as the Egyptian story of the god Osiris being resurrected by his wife, Isis. Most relevant for Christianity, though, are Judaism’s own ideas about resurrection.

‘Your dead shall live’

One of the earliest written Jewish references to resurrection in the Bible is found in the Book of Isaiah, which discusses a future era, perhaps a time of final judgment, in which the dead would rise and be subject to God’s ultimate justice. “Your dead shall live; their corpses shall rise,” Isaiah prophesies. “Those who dwell in the dust will awake and shout for joy.”

Later Jewish biblical texts such as the Book of Daniel also referenced resurrection.

There were several competing Jewish sects at the time of Jesus’ life. The most prominent and influential, the Pharisees, further integrated the concept of resurrection into Jewish thought. According to the first-century historian Josephus, the Pharisees believed that the soul was immortal and could be reunited with a resurrected body – ideas that would likely have made the idea of Jesus rising from the dead more acceptable to the Jews of his time.

Within a few centuries, the rabbis began to fuse together the earlier biblical references to bodily resurrection with the later ideas of the Pharisees. In particular, the rabbis began to discuss the concept of bodily resurrection and its connection to the messianic era.

Jews believed that the legitimate Messiah would be a descendant of the biblical King David who would vanquish their enemies and restore Israel to its previous glory. In the centuries following Jesus’ death, the rabbis taught that the souls of the dead would be resurrected after the Messiah appeared on earth.

By the 500s C.E. or so, the rabbis further elaborated upon the concept. The Talmud, the most important collection of authoritative writings on Jewish law apart from the Bible itself, notes that one who does not believe in resurrection has no share in the “Olam Haba,” the “World to Come.” The Olam Haba is the realm where these sages believed one’s soul eventually dwells after death. Interestingly, the concept of hell itself never became ingrained within mainstream Jewish thought.

Even now, the concept of God giving life to the dead is affirmed every day in the Amidah, a Jewish prayer recited as part of the daily morning, afternoon and evening services.

Old ideas, new beliefs

The fact that the first followers of Jesus were Jews likely contributed to the concept of resurrection becoming ingrained into Christian thought. Yet the Christian understanding of resurrection was taken to an unprecedented degree in the decades following Jesus’ death.

According to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus, a Jew from Galilee, entered Jerusalem in the days before Passover. He was accused of sedition against the Roman authorities – and likely other charges, such as blasphemy – largely because he was causing a disturbance among the Jews getting ready to celebrate the holiday. At the time, Passover was a pilgrimage festival in which tens of thousands of Jews would travel to Jerusalem.

After being betrayed by one of his followers, Judas, Jesus was arrested, hastily put on trial and sentenced to be crucified. The Roman authorities wished to uphold the pax Romana, or Roman peace. They feared that unrest amid a major festival could lead to a rebellion, especially given the accusation that at least some of Jesus’ followers believed him to be the “King of the Jews, as was recorded later in Matthew’s and Mark’s Gospels.

According to the Gospels, Jesus was put to death on what is now Good Friday, and rose again on the third day – which today is celebrated as Easter Sunday.

Jesus’ early followers believed not only that he had been resurrected, but that he was the long-awaited Jewish messiah, who had fulfilled earlier Jewish prophecies. Eventually, they also embraced the idea that he was the divine Son of God, although scholars still debate exactly how and when this occurred.

In addition, the nature of Jesus’ resurrection remains a source of debate among theologians and scholars – such as whether followers believed his resurrected body was made of flesh and blood, or pure spirit.

Yet the grander meaning of the resurrection, which is recorded in all four canonical Gospels, remains clear for many of the approximately 2 billion Christians around the world: They believe that Jesus triumphed over death, which serves as a cornerstone foundation of the Christian faith.

Aaron Gale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

It has been more than 500 years since Vatican decrees gave European colonizers permission to carve up the “New World” – and just one since Pope Francis disavowed them.

On March 30, 2023, Francis repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery”: a set of ideas the Spanish and Portuguese, in particular, used to justify seizing land they had “discovered” and colonizing Indigenous people in the land they came to call the Americas. The Vatican’s statement not only rejected the doctrine, but also apologized for historical atrocities carried out by Christians and affirmed the rights and cultural values of Indigenous peoples.

The repudiation can hardly undo centuries of oppressing Indigenous people and stealing their lands. Yet the statement is monumental in ways that signal cultural and political shifts within the Catholic Church. It recognized decades of work by Indigenous Catholics to demand that their very own church respect their history, culture and faith – a focus of my work as a historian of Mexico and religion.

‘New World,’ new owners

The Doctrine of Discovery has its roots in 15th century papal documents, called “papal bulls,” which were issued amid Spain’s and Portugal’s colonial expansion in Africa and the recently “discovered” Americas.

“Inter Caetera,” for example, which was issued in 1493, drew a line 100 leagues, or around 350 miles, to the west of the Azores and Cape Verde in the Atlantic Ocean. The document declared that all lands west of that line were free to be discovered, colonized and Christianized by the Kingdoms of Castile and León – modern-day Spain.

In other words, the Catholic Church gave Spain a monopoly on the New World, on the condition that the natives be converted to Christianity. Soon after, however, Spain and Portugal negotiated the Treaty of Tordesillas, settling Portuguese claims over modern-day Brazil.

More broadly, the Doctrine of Discovery shaped European kingdoms’ approach to colonizing the Americas, Asia and Africa. It was, simply put, the legal foundation of their claims over non-Christian peoples and territories.

Three centuries later, the Supreme Court of the newly independent United States cited the doctrine in a significant decision, Johnson v. McIntosh. According to this 1823 ruling, Indigenous peoples had no permanent right to the territory they lived on.

Seeds of change

Despite forced Christianization, church leaders repeatedly despaired that Indigenous Latin Americans had not fully become Catholic. The Spanish reluctantly tolerated Indigenous Catholic practices, such as worshipping the Virgin of Guadalupe, an apparition of Mary in Mexico, and associating her with the Nahuátl mother goddess, Tonantzin. They reasoned that the Indigenous were novice Christians who would learn in time – an attitude that persisted for centuries.

The Catholic Church addressed multicultural questions in the 1960s, during the Second Vatican Council. Over four years, in thousands of hours of meetings and consultations, the church embarked on its first major reforms in centuries.

The council approved using vernacular languages in Mass instead of Latin, promoted cooperation with other faiths and signaled a shift toward tolerating the diverse ways Catholics expressed their faith around the world. One of the resulting documents, “Ad gentes,” promoted missionary activity among unconverted peoples. However, it recognized that all cultures contained “seeds” of Christianity and that cultural diversity in the church would strengthen the body of the Catholic Church as a whole.

Building a movement

Almost immediately, Indigenous Catholics throughout Latin America began organizing to make these possibilities real.

In Mexico, a group of young priests and seminarians organized the Movement of Indigenous Priests. Spearheaded by a young Indigenous priest, Eleazar López Hernández, they pushed back against the notion that men entering the priesthood had to choose between their Indigenous and priestly identities.

At the core of their demands was the insistence that multiple Catholicisms could exist within the same Catholic Church. For instance, in 1971, López Hernández testified about the importance of having Indigenous priests in Indigenous communities. These Catholics, he argued, deserved clergy who spoke their language, could participate meaningfully in traditional rituals, understood their roots, and who could honor Indigenous spirituality in addition to Catholicism’s message of salvation.

Their demands inspired new Catholic institutions. In 1969, several dioceses founded the Regional Seminary of the Southeast, called SERESURE. The seminary’s explicit mission was to train priests to work in poor Indigenous areas, and it became a hub for Indigenous Catholicism. SERESURE developed an innovative structure that drew on Indigenous traditions of governing their communities by assembly, challenging strictly hierarchical church practices.

Yet SERESURE was shuttered in 1989 over allegations of incorrect doctrine, Marxism and supporting armed revolutionary movements. There was some truth to the first two allegations, but the third had little basis in truth.

It spoke, however, to the types of work some church agents were doing with Indigenous people in the region. Young priests, religious sisters and lay Catholics were fanning out to work with communities living in desperate poverty, trying to both provide economic opportunity and preserve local cultures and languages. This poverty had given birth to armed movements in Mexico, Guatemala and beyond during the Cold War.

For many of these Catholics, salvation did not only mean going to heaven, but building a more just world.

Steps forward – and back

By the early 1990s, conflicts between the Vatican and Indigenous peoples had bled into the public sphere.

John Paul II increased attention to Indigenous Catholics with his visits to southern Mexico. During his papacy, however, the Vatican celebrated 1992 as the 500th anniversary of bringing Christianity to the New World.

Indigenous movements across the Americas rejected such a rosy depiction of colonization, enslavement and forced conversion. Instead, they organized protests under the banner of “500 Years of Resistance,” celebrating Indigenous resilience, culture, language and spirituality. In Tehuacán, Mexico, Indigenous Catholic priests led a march of nearly 20,000 Nahua people that culminated in an open-air Mass conducted in Nahuátl– the language of the Mexica, or Aztecs.

It was not until 2013, after Francis’ election as pope, that the Vatican approved Nahuátl as an official language of the Catholic Church – meaning it can be used to conduct Mass inside churches. In addition, the Vatican ordered Mexican bishops to translate Catholic liturgy and texts into Nahuátl.

This was a large first step in recognizing the decades of work of Indigenous Catholics to insist that multiple Catholicisms can and should exist side by side.

Since 2015, the Mexican Catholic Church has hosted an annual Nahuátl Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The Mass opened with traditional rural Indigenous music, and the offerings and decorations evoked the sights, sounds and smells of an Indigenous community parish – an open embrace of Indigenous Catholicisms.

Across the Catholic world, the Vatican has been opening to multicultural Catholicisms in recent years. The Nahuátl Mass is but one example, as is the repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery.

Francis’ statement was important as an institutional recognition of historical atrocities. More profoundly, it was a validation of Indigenous Catholic activists’ demands for inclusion on their terms, even while disputes over multiculturalism continue.

Eben Levey received funding from a Fulbright Fellowship and from the University of Maryland, College Park for his dissertation research.

Nearly 70% of Muslim Americans say they always give zakat, a yearly donation of 2.5% of one’s wealth that Islam encourages, during Ramadan according to a new study I worked on.

Ramadan is a month-long period of fasting and spiritual growth during which Muslims refrain from all food, beverages and sexual activity from dawn to dusk.

Our Muslim Philanthropy Initiative research team at Indiana University surveyed 1,136 Muslims across the country in 2023 to assess the connection between Ramadan and zakat. We also looked into demographic differences in Muslim giving tied to Ramadan.

We found that women, married couples, those who consider themselves to be very religious, people with incomes in the US$50,000-$75,000 range, people in their 30s, and those who are registered to vote are most likely to give the bulk of their zakat during Ramadan.

Why it matters

Billions of Muslims across the world observe Ramadan.

Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam, is aimed at redistributing wealth and alleviating poverty within the Muslim community. Muslims can give to the poor, people who owe big debts, stranded travelers and those seeking to free people from slavery or captivity to meet the requirements of zakat.

Muslims often offer zakat during Ramadan through fundraising at iftars, which are gatherings held at sunset where people break their fast together.

Nonprofits that are not led by Muslims tend to focus their fundraising efforts on giving in December and important secular days for campaigns, such as Giving Tuesday. But if these organizations don’t do outreach to Muslims during Ramadan they are less likely to raise money effectively from a small but generous population.

Muslim-led U.S. nonprofits do spend a significant amount of time and money on fundraising during Ramadan. But they may not realize the importance of stepping up their efforts to seek zakat from Muslims in their 30s, women, married couples, active voters and those who regularly pray at a mosque.

In previous research projects, we’ve found that U.S. Muslims support both Muslim and non-Muslim nonprofits, donating at least $4.3 billion in 2021, including about $1.8 billion in zakat.

What’s next

We are partnering with Islamic Relief USA, the largest Muslim-led humanitarian charity in the United States which serves people in the United States and internationally, and our colleagues at Indiana University’s Lake Institute on Faith and Giving to conduct annual surveys of Muslims in the United States to better understand Muslim giving starting in 2024.

We’re also conducting surveys and focus groups across the world to have a global understanding of Muslim giving. We aim to release data from Pakistan, Kuwait, Jordan, Turkey, Qatar, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Bangladesh, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Bahrain, Kyrgyzstan, Italy, Bangladesh and India, in addition to the United States by the end of 2025.

What still isn’t known

Additional research is needed to better understand what motivates these donors to give during Ramadan, how much money U.S. Muslims give to charity during Ramadan and the best ways for nonprofits led by Muslims and non-Muslims to engage donors who are moved to support charitable causes during Ramadan.

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

Shariq Siddiqui receives funding from The John Templeton Foundation, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Arts, Pillars Fund, Proteus Fund, Islamic Relief USA, Zakat Foundation of America, PennyAppeal USA, Mirza Family Foundation, Helping Hand Relief and Development, Nama Foundation and WF Fund. This research study was funded by Islamic Relief USA.

On April 3, 1968, standing before a crowded church, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. painted his vision for justice. “I’ve seen the Promised Land,” he said. “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land.”

Twenty-two hours later, he was assassinated.

King’s prophetic words express the virtue of hope amid hardship. He was not optimistic that he would reach the “Promised Land,” yet he was hopeful about the ultimate goal.

In conversation, “hope” and “optimism” can often be used as synonyms. But there’s an important gap between them, as psychology research suggests.

One of the most common tools to measure optimism asks people how much they agree with statements such as, “In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.” Those who strongly agree are regarded as highly optimistic.

But optimism can rely on a sense of luck over action. Self-help books on optimism are lined with hacks – like imagining your greatest possible self or focusing on the best-case scenario.

My psychology research studies how people perceive hope and justice. Long-term hope is not about looking on the bright side. It is a mindset that helps people endure challenges, tackle them head-on and keep their eyes on the goal – a virtue that King and other community leaders exemplify.

We, not me

Hope is often defined in psychological research as having strong will to succeed and plans to reach a goal.

Hope is stronger than optimism at predictingacademic success and people’s ability to cope with pain. Plenty of scientific evidence suggests that hope improves individuals’ health and boosts their well-being.

But branding hope as a self-improvement tool cheapens this long-established virtue. Hope has benefits beyond the self. Thus, many psychologists are expanding the study of hope beyond personal success. My research team defines this “virtuous hope” as striving toward a purposeful vision of the common good – a hope often shaped by hardship and strengthened through relationships.

Many leaders, including King, have channeled that lesson to inspire change. Centuries of spiritual and philosophical work describe hope as a virtue that, like love, is a decision, not a feeling.

The myth of time

King wasn’t known for looking on the bright side or expecting the best from others. He faced repeated waves of criticism, and, at the time of his death, fewer Americans approved of him than of the Vietnam War.

In “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” King lamented the optimism of moderate white Americans who said they supported his goals but took little action. There is a “strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills,” he wrote. “Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.”

He chastised society for believing that improvement would simply happen on its own. When he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,” he was not describing its natural trajectory, but what people have the power to change. You cannot expect greener pastures if they are not tended today.

King was not alone in leveraging virtuous hope for justice. Brazilian educator Paulo Freire described hope as an “existential imperative” that promotes action. Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison, called hope a “powerful weapon.”

Forged in adversity

What makes hope a virtue is not its ability to promote happiness and success but its commitment to a greater good beyond the self.

I study virtuous hope in a South African Zulu community, where there are few reasons for optimism. South Africa has the world’s steepest inequality. Unemployment is high, and social mobility is low. This is the part of the country where HIV is most widespread, with the percentage near 50% in some communities.

We studied several people seen as embodying hope, based on their reputation and community suggestions. These individuals demonstrated an unwavering focus on striving for a better future, often unglued from expectations of personal success.

One local farmer nominated by his community struggled to buy seeds for his crops but still helped others apply for grants to buy them. Even when his own future was uncertain, he was not hoarding. He described his hope as a commitment to help others. His hope is not a positive expectation but a moral commitment.

Our interviewees did not describe hardship as a suppressor of hope but as its context to grow.

One unemployed young woman said she had applied for jobs for four years and would continue, though she was not naïve about the tough future. She said applying for jobs and reading to her child were her acts of hope. Her hope didn’t expect a quick improvement, yet it warded off paralysis.

Many of our interviewees anchored their hope in their Christian faith, as did King. King often referenced St. Paul, one of the first Christian writers, who wrote, “Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Now this hope does not disappoint us.”

Hope, in other words, plays the long game: enduring suffering with integrity. Like King’s, it manifests in hardship and is refined in adversity. Hope enables communities to march for justice and democracy even while tasting the danger of dictatorship, apartheid or oligarchy.

Hope knows it may take another generation to reach the Promised Land, but it acts today to bend the moral arc toward justice.

Kendra Thomas receives funding from the John Templeton Foundation

We live in a light-polluted world, where streetlamps, electronic ads and even backyard lighting block out all but the brightest celestial objects in the night sky. But travel to an officially protected “Dark Sky” area, gaze skyward and be amazed.

This is the view of the heavens people had for millennia. Pre-modern societies watched the sky and created cosmographies, maps of the skies that provided information for calendars and agricultural cycles. They also created cosmologies, which, in the original use of the word, were religious beliefs to explain the universe. The gods and the heavens were inseparable.

The skies are orderly and cyclical in nature, so watch and record long enough and you will determine their rhythms. Many societies were able to accurately predict lunar eclipses, and some could also predict solar eclipses– like the one that will occur over North America on April 8, 2024.

The path of totality, where the Moon will entirely block the Sun, will cross into Mexico on the Pacific coast before entering the United States in Texas, where I teach the history of technology and science, and will be seen as a partial eclipse across the lands of the ancient Maya. This follows the October 2023 annular eclipse, when it was possible to observe the “ring of fire” around the Sun from many ancient Maya ruins and parts of Texas.

A millennia ago, two such solar eclipses over the same area within six months would have seen Maya astronomers, priests and rulers leap into a frenzy of activity. I have seen a similar frenzy – albeit for different reasons – here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where we will be in the path of totality. During this period between the two eclipses, I have felt privileged to share my interest in the history of astronomy with students and the community.

Ancient astronomers

The ancient Maya were arguably one of the greatest sky-watching societies. Accomplished mathematicians, they recorded systematic observations on the motion of the Sun, planets and stars.

From these observations, they created a complex calendar system to regulate their world – one of the most accurate of pre-modern times.

Astronomers closely observed the Sun and aligned monumental structures, such as pyramids, to track solstices and equinoxes. They also utilized these structures, as well as caves and wells, to mark the zenith days– the two times a year in the tropics where the Sun is directly overhead and vertical objects cast no shadow.

Maya scribes kept accounts of the astronomical observations in codices, hieroglyphic folding books made from fig bark paper. The Dresden Codex, one of the four remaining ancient Maya texts, dates to the 11th century. Its pages contain a wealth of astronomical knowledge and religious interpretations and provide evidence that the Maya could predict solar eclipses.

From the codex’s astronomical tables, researchers know that the Maya tracked the lunar nodes, the two points where the orbit of the Moon intersects with the ecliptic– the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, which from our point of view is the path of the Sun through our sky. They also created tables divided into the 177-day solar eclipse seasons, marking days where eclipses were possible.

Heavenly battle

But why invest so much in tracking the skies?

Knowledge is power. If you kept accounts of what happened at the time of certain celestial events, you could be forewarned and take proper precautions when cycles repeated themselves. Priests and rulers would know how to act, which rituals to perform and which sacrifices to make to the gods to guarantee that the cycles of destruction, rebirth and renewal continued.

In the Maya’s belief system, sunsets were associated with death and decay. Every evening the sun god, Kinich Ahau, made the perilous journey through Xibalba, the Maya underworld, to be born anew at sunrise. Solar eclipses were seen as a “broken sun” – a sign of possible cataclysmic destruction.

Kinich Ahau was associated with prosperity and good order. His brother Chak Ek – the morning star, which we now know as the planet Venus – was associated with war and discord. They had an adversarial relationship, fighting for supremacy.

Their battle could be witnessed in the heavens. During solar eclipses, planets, stars and sometimes comets can be seen during totality. If positioned properly, Venus will shine brightly near the eclipsed Sun, which the Maya interpreted as Chak Ek on the attack. This is hinted at in the Dresden Codex, where a diving Venus god appears in the solar eclipse tables, and in the coordination of solar eclipses with the Venus cycles in the Madrid Codex, another Maya folding book from the late 15th century.

With Kinich Ahau – the Sun – hidden behind the Moon, the Maya believed he was dying. Renewal rituals were necessary to restore balance and set him back on his proper course.

Nobility, especially the king, would perform bloodletting sacrifices, piercing their bodies and collecting the blood drops to burn as offerings to the sun god. This “blood of kings” was the highest form of sacrifice, meant to strengthen Kinich Ahau. Maya believed the creator gods had given their blood and mixed it with maize dough to create the first humans. In turn, the nobility gave a small portion of their own life force to nourish the gods.

Time stands still

In the lead-up to April’s eclipse, I feel as if I am completing a personal cycle of my own, bringing me back to earlier career paths: first as an aerospace engineer who loved her orbital mechanics classes and enjoyed backyard astronomy; and then as a history doctoral student, studying how Maya culture persisted after the Spanish conquest.

For me, just like the ancient Maya, the total solar eclipse will be a chance to not only look up but also to consider both past and future. Viewing the eclipse is something our ancestors have done since time immemorial and will do far into the future. It is awesome in the original sense of the word: For a few moments it seems as if time both stops, as all eyes turn skyward, and converges, as we take part in the same spectacle as our ancestors and descendants.

And whether you believe in divine messages, battles between Venus and the Sun, or in the beauty of science and the natural world, this event brings people together. It is humbling, and it is also very, very cool.

I just hope that Kinich Ahau will grace us with his presence in a cloudless sky and once again vanquish Venus, which is a morning star on April 8.

Kimberly H. Breuer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Does the upcoming solar eclipse signal the second coming of Jesus? In all likelihood, no, but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating that it does.

The New Testament is peppered with references to Jesus’ “second coming,” the time when Christians believe Jesus will return to Earth, the wicked will be judged, and the righteous rewarded.

The Apostle Paul writes about it in his letters, and the Gospels portray Jesus speaking about it.

The upcoming solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, which will be visible over parts of North America, has brought with it a slew of predictions that Jesus might be returning sooner rather than later.

I am a scholar of early Christian literature whose research focuses on how people read, understand and sometimes misunderstand biblical texts.

Religious theories surrounding this eclipse are part of a larger pattern of attempts to find meaning in astronomical events that goes back thousands of years.

Finding meaning in the skies

One of the more famous examples from the ancient world of people finding meaning in the skies occurred in 44 B.C.E., when a comet appeared in the skies over Italy just four short months after the assassination of Julius Caesar. Roman authors Pliny the Elder and Suetonius claimed that the comet was visible for about a week and that it was so bright, it could be spotted in the late afternoon.

Many Romans interpreted its appearance and lingering presence as a sign that Caesar had ascended to the heavens and had taken a seat among the many gods of Rome. Caesar’s deification was made official by a vote of the Roman senate less than two years later.

A few examples from the past 30 years further illustrate this phenomenon. In December 2020, speculation ran wild in some Christian circles that a planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn signaled the return of the fabled “Star of Bethlehem” that led the wise men to the newborn Jesus.

For at least 10 years, televangelist John Hagee has promoted theories linking various “blood moons” as signs that the apocalypse is approaching.

A tragic example is the religious movement known as Heaven’s Gate. Members of this movement believed that there was a spacecraft hidden in the tail of the Hale-Bopp Comet, which appeared in 1997. This spacecraft, they thought, was coming to transport them to a higher level of consciousness. In March 1997, 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate movement committed ritualized, mass suicide through a lethal combination of phenobarbital, vodka and asphyxiation.

Chasing shadows

It can be difficult to pinpoint exactly where such interpretations of celestial events originate.

In the case of the upcoming eclipse, one of the images that has fueled predictions of Jesus’ second coming simply notes southern Illinois as the location where the upcoming eclipse will overlap the path of the last North American solar eclipse in 2017.

From this image, two theories have emerged: First, that these eclipses are separated by roughly seven years, which has symbolic significance in biblical literature as a number indicating completeness and perfection. Second, on charting the paths of these eclipses on a map, they appear to form a cross.

Some Christians have taken this as evidence that the upcoming eclipse is an indication that Jesus’ return is imminent.

But there is no logical basis for this theory.

For starters, solar eclipses are not quite as rare as they seem. A solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the Earth and the Sun and blots out all or some of the Sun’s light. They seem rare because they affect only the narrow strip of land that falls in the shadow of the Moon.

According to NASA, there has been an average of 2.5 eclipses per year over the past 1,000 years.

The phenomenon of two eclipses crossing paths is also rather unremarkable. Looking at a map of eclipse paths between 2001 and 2025, it is clear that eclipses frequently cross paths; of the 15 solar eclipses during this span of time, only two did not cross paths.

One could argue that the North American eclipses of 2017 and 2024 are unique because of the seven years that separate them. But this isn’t logical in terms of the larger argument that some are making. These eclipses – on August 21, 2017, and April 8, 2024 – are separated not by seven years but by six and a half years, or 2,422 days to be exact. Another pair of eclipses that crossed paths in the Pacific Ocean – on July 22, 2009, and March 9, 2016 – were separated by the same number of days.

Seek and you will find

Most of these end times predictions are rooted in North American evangelical views on the apocalypse, many of which originated or at least share an affinity with evangelical author Hal Lindsey’s popular book, “The Late Great Planet Earth.”

In this book, Lindsey predicted that the apocalypse would occur in the 1980s, and to make his argument, he stitched together a number of disparate events and phenomena to construct an apocalyptic narrative that included Soviet helicopters, the establishment of the state of Israel and nuclear warfare.

Lindsey was wrong, of course; the 1980s did not bring about the apocalypse. But this way of thinking – of seeking to find significance in various random events like eclipses – persists among some Christians.

The difference between this pairing of the 2017 and 2024 eclipses and the ones from 2009 and 2016 is simple: The most recent pairing crosses over the United States. Patterns emerge when and where they are sought, and much depends on the aims of the people doing the seeking.

The second coming of Jesus is undeniably a topic of conversation among New Testament authors. But it is interesting to note that there is little agreement among these authors when it comes to timing. What is presented in the Gospels is different from what is presented in the letters of Paul. And both of these are quite different from what is found in the book of Revelation.

But these authors do share a sense that the timing of “the end” is ultimately mysterious and unknowable. And this would suggest that attempting to predict such timing by means of things like eclipses is, at the very least, not terribly “biblical.”

Eric Vanden Eykel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

A stained-glass window, donated in 1877 to a church in Rhode Island, shows Jesus as a dark-skinned man. Most Western depictions portrayed him as a European, with light skin and sometimes even with blue eyes. A Black Jesus at this time was unknown.

Now in the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, the window was made by the studio of Henry Sharp, a prominent 19th-century American stained-glassmaker who was popular with Episcopal congregations. Sharp’s first three windows for the now-closed St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Warren, Rhode Island, were of solitary white male figures, including one of Christ as “Salvator Mundi,” or Savior of the World. Christ is rigid, staring fixedly and holding an orb, a symbol of worldly power.

The Black Jesus window is different – instead of depicting a singular saintly figure, the 12-by-5-foot window tells a full narrative. It depicts scenes of Jesus speaking with women who also have dark brown skin.

As a scholar of images, I believe that the window speaks about equality, not only of race, but of gender, class and ethnicity.

The scenes were based on two Bibles published in the 1860s, illustrated by the German artist Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld and the French artist Gustave Doré. Von Carolsfeld provided the model for the first scene, when Jesus visits his friends for dinner – two sisters named Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus.

In the Gospel of Luke, Christ criticizes Martha for being preoccupied with preparation for receiving guests and praises Mary, sitting immobile at his feet so that she can listen. In the window, however, service and contemplation are equally praised. Christ looks directly at Martha standing and Mary sitting. Like the medieval monastic model of “ora et labora,” or prayer and labor – both seen as complementary elements of society.

In a second image on the same window, Christ speaks with a Samaritan woman alone, which, during that time, men were not supposed to do. Additionally, the Samaritans, an ethnic group living in the Middle East, were viewed at the time by the Jews as different and inferior. Christ, however, asks her for water and tells her that he is Son of God, the Messiah.

I, along with other conservators who have examined the window, found the dark paint used for the skin color authentic and not a result of any deterioration, which can have a darkening effect on paintings over time. This color skin, as far as art historians know, was not used in any other window before this time.

The donor, a woman named Mary P. Carr, honored the memory of two women whom she named in the inscription. One, Ruth Bourne DeWolf, had married John DeWolf, a descendant of the Bristol family that had built its great fortune through transport of enslaved Africans. She and Hannah Gibbs, the other woman named, gave money to the American Colonization Society that supported the passage of free Africans to Africa.

Carr’s commission dates to the same year of the U.S. Congress’ Compromise of 1877, which effectively ended post-Civil War Reconstruction. I argue that this was not a coincidence but that Carr intended the window as a protest against the segregation laws being enacted that led to the era of “Jim Crow” in Southern states. She also wanted to seek more respect for women’s work.

The window not only depicts women at work but shows Jesus directly talking respectfully to these women as they are working.

Virginia Raguin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The United Methodist Church’s General Conference will meet in Charlotte, North Carolina from April 23 to May 4, 2024. Originally scheduled for 2020 and delayed three times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this meeting of the church’s legislative body comes at a critical time for the United States’ second-largest Protestant denomination.

In 2022, conservative Methodists announced a break with the UMC, forming the Global Methodist Church. These leaders believed that the UMC had become too liberal, drifting away from orthodoxy. The issue at the heart of the split, however, revolves around the UMC’s long-standing battle over LGBTQ+ rights.

This denominational split draws comparisons to one in 1844, when Methodists divided over slavery. As a scholar of American religious history and Methodist studies, I see parallels but also great differences between the current schism and the one in 1844.

Both schisms center on predominant social issues of their eras. The current schism, however, comes at a time when United Methodists, like other American churches, must navigate a changing religious landscape – one where church membership is declining, especially among younger Americans.

Methodist roots

The UMC traces its origins to the 18th-century Anglican clergyman John Wesley, who sought to reinvigorate Anglicans’ sense of personal faith.

Emphasizing piety and social engagement, Wesley’s followers spread Methodism throughout the British Isles and North America. As the movement grew, his followers separated from the Anglican Church to form several Methodist denominations.

The first Methodist church in the U.S., the Methodist Episcopal Church, was founded in 1784. This church and smaller Methodist denominations grew rapidly. By 1850, approximately 1 in 3 Americans affiliated with a church was a Methodist.

Today, there are 80 Methodist and Wesleyan denominations around the world, with the UMC being the largest.

The 1844 rupture

Like other Protestant churches before the Civil War, Methodists were divided over slavery.

Wesley viewed slavery as a great social evil that deprived enslaved people of God-given human rights. However, U.S. Methodists – including one of the founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Francis Asbury– worried that enforcing the church’s prohibitions against slavery would alienate members in the South. For much of the early 19th century, Northern and Southern Methodists followed Asbury’s lead, seeking to prevent a formal schism.

At the same time, Methodism fractured. African Americans in the Methodist Episcopal Church were barred from being ordained as ministers, and church members often worshipped in segregated congregations. This led to the formation of many independent African American Methodist churches – the largest being the African Methodist Episcopal Church, founded by Richard Allen in 1816.

At the 1844 General Conference, the slavery issue boiled over into a major schism. Delegates voted to remove from office a bishop, James Osgood Andrew, because he owned slaves. Andrew’s removal angered Southern delegates who argued that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible. In 1845, Southern Methodist leaders withdrew from the denomination, forming the Methodist Episcopal Church South.

In 1939, these Northern and Southern churches reunited. Together with another Protestant denomination with historical ties to Methodism, the Evangelical United Brethren, they then combined to form the UMC in 1968.

Debating homosexuality

In 1972, the General Conference adopted a formal statement asserting that homosexuality was “incompatible with Christian teaching.” Subsequent conferences tightened these restrictions, notably in 1984, when the church barred what it called “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” from being ordained.

Since the 1970s, groups on both sides of this issue have mobilized. An organization called the Reconciling Ministries Network has worked to bring together UMC congregations who support the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people. Conservative groups, meanwhile, such as a caucus called the Good News Movement, have campaigned to enforce the existing LGBTQ+ prohibitions.

In 1996, the General Conference added legislation prohibiting clergy from conducting same-sex weddings– though the number who did so increased significantly.

In recent decades, members of many U.S. churches, including United Methodists, have shown greater acceptance toward LGBTQ+ people. The 2016 election of Karen Oliveto as the first openly gay bishop of any gender in the UMC marked these shifting attitudes.

Conservatives continue to oppose reforms, including a growing number of United Methodists from outside the U.S – an increasing portion of the church. For example, many African United Methodists come from nations with strict laws banning homosexuality. Of the 862 delegates attending the upcoming General Conference, 380 will be from outside the U.S. Nearly 300 of these delegates will come from Africa.

At an impasse

Conflicts between conservatives and progressives came to a head in 2019, when bishops called a special conference in hopes of preventing a schism.

Their council endorsed what was called the One Church Plan, which would have allowed United Methodists in different countries more autonomy. Specifically, they could determine how to address questions on sexuality.

However, delegates voted overwhelmingly for what was called The Traditional Plan. This kept the church’s restrictions against LGBTQ+ people in place, while calling for more punitive measures against pastors who conducted same-sex weddings.

The 2019 conference then passed a resolution giving local congregations the option to leave the UMC over matters of sexuality. Congregations were given until the end of 2023 to disaffiliate, although the ramifications were to be finalized at the 2020 General Conference.

This session was repeatedly postponed, however, due to COVID-19. Doubting that U.S.-based leaders would uphold the prohibitions of the Traditional Plan, a group of conservatives formed the Global Methodist Church in March 2022, triggering an exodus of several local churches. As of early 2024, more than 7,600 churches have disaffiliated, representing roughly a fourth of United Methodist congregations.

Uncertain future

Ahead of the 2024 General Conference, conservatives have indicated their intention to lobby to extend the deadline for disaffiliation. Some progressive United Methodists, frustrated by the UMC’s persistent refusal to expand LGBTQ+ rights, have considered forming a third Methodist denomination.

Regardless of what happens in Charlotte, Methodist churches will face challenging futures.

Unlike 1844, when many churches were growing rapidly, the current schism comes as American Protestantism is shrinking. This includes not only mainline Protestant denominations, but more conservative churches as well. In 1968, United Methodist membership in the U.S. was 10.3 million; at the end of 2018, it was 6.7 million.

Another serious challenge is the rising percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation, commonly called religious nones – many of whom are disillusioned by anti-LGBTQ+ policies.

Regardless of the General Conference’s outcome, Methodists face a religious landscape unknown to their 19th century predecessors.

Christopher H. Evans does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

On the festival of Baisakhi, celebrated usually on April 13, Sikhs the world over will joyously wear yellow saffron colors, symbolizing spring harvest and the solar new year, when the Sun enters the constellation Aries.

In gurdwaras, or Sikh temples, they will sing hymns in congregational singing, or “kirtan,” and eat communal meals, or “langar.” They will also recall some of the tenets of their faith that revolve around “seva,” or serving fellow human beings and seeking to build a just society while living a simple life.

The Sikh religion, with its line of 10 gurus, is traced back to the time of Guru Nanak, the first guru. Born in a village in present-day Pakistan in the northern state of Punjab in 1469, Nanak believed in the oneness of God, the timeless Supreme Being, or “Akālpurukh,” and looked at the universe as steeped in divine light.

He rejected the prevalent unequal caste system, which fixed the status of people by birth. Instead, he looked upon humanity as one. He encouraged his followers not to take the path of renunciation but to work hard and perform acts of charity.

As a scholar of Punjab and Sikh studies, I want to draw attention to the importance of Baisakhi celebrations. According to Sikh tradition, the tenth Guru, Gobind Rai, the last in the line of 10 human Gurus, established the Khalsa order on this day in 1699. In a remarkable event that transformed forever the future of the Sikh community, the Guru created the elite martial group of the Khalsa, who would remain a role model for the Sikhs for ages to come.

The Khalsa ideal

The dramatic creation story of the Khalsa relates that the guru demanded sacrifice of life from his loyal followers who came to his abode in Anandpur in Punjab to celebrate Baisakhi and the beneficence of the harvest. Five brave-hearts offered their heads.

The guru took them inside a tent one by one, emerging each time with a bloodied sword in front of an awestruck audience. Finally, the guru revealed the five unharmed followers; he had beheaded goats.

His five beloved disciples, known as the “Pañj Piāre,” were in the Sikh tradition the first initiates into the new order of the Khalsa, meaning the pure. They were baptized through the “khanḍe-dī-pāhul” ceremony, an initiation in which a double-edged sword, or “khaṅḍā,” was used to stir sweetened water in an iron cauldron – the “amrit” or ambrosia. The guru then administered the “amrit” to the five, who in turn initiated the guru.

The guru is said to have pronounced that henceforth his Khalsa will be called lions, or “singh,” and they would maintain five symbols on their person that would set them apart from ordinary Sikhs and burnish their martial demeanor. These “pañjkakār,” or five K’s, were unshorn hair, or “keś;” a comb, or “kangha;” long breeches, or “kachh;” a steel bangle, or “kara;” and a dagger, or “kirpan.” Above all, the Khalsa were to fight for creating a just world.

The need for the Khalsa

To understand the need for the Khalsa, it is important to step back into history. For over 300 years, starting in 1526, large parts of India were ruled by the powerful Mughal dynasty of Central Asian origins. While the early Sikh gurus had cordial relations with the Mughals, hostilities emerged in later years with their growing popularity and following. The fifth guru, Arjan Dev, was said to have been tortured and executed for spreading “false religion” during the time of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir.

Under his son and successor, the sixth guru, Hargobind, the pacifist Sikh community began to turn militaristic. Guru Hargobind symbolically wore two swords that underscored his secular power along with spiritual authority.

The tenth, Gobind Singh, became guru at age nine. This was after the execution of his father, the ninth Guru Tegh Bahadur, in 1675 by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, a sign of increased hostilities. For the Sikhs, the issue at stake was the freedom to practice one’s religion while exercising legitimate political autonomy in an overarching Mughal empire. According to the Sikhs, that would allow the flourishing of the Sikh culture and the ability to provide social and political patronage to the guru’s followers.

The martial Khalsa was considered to be a political necessity during these times, which they perceived as being tyrannical. The Khalsa also embodied self-discipline to inspire the guru’s Sikhs, the ordinary followers who did not become Khalsa.

An egalitarian stance

Though social and caste differences persisted among the Sikhs, the gurus actively worked to address them.

The life of the first guru, Nanak, is relayed in hagiographies called “Janam-sakhi.” These portray him in the company of the Muslims and Hindus preaching harmony and respecting those placed at the bottom of the caste hierarchy.

For the tenth guru, Gobind Singh, the Khalsa were the ideal for others to emulate. His beloved five, who had been willing to sacrifice their lives for him, further demonstrated the importance of social equality. Belonging to different caste groups, they represented the values of compassion, duty, firmness, honor and effort. Together, they formed the first core of the Khalsa. Not all Sikhs, however, adopted Khalsa tenets and practice.

The Khalsa under colonialism

By the late 19th century, Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims living in the north Indian state of Punjab were grappling with British colonial rule.

Social and religious reform movements among Punjab’s inhabitants, including the Sikhs, tried to overcome the humiliation of colonial rule by rethinking the relevance of social and cultural practice that the British criticized. Customs such as early marriage and practices around widowhood that oppressed women, and caste discrimination that affected all, were reassessed. The gurus’ strong censure of these practices was reemphasized. For Sikh intellectuals, rejuvenating the egalitarian spirit of the Khalsa at this time seemed urgent. Gender and caste inequities, they believed, could be combated by reviving Khalsa norms.

The spirit of Baisakhi for Sikhs is reminiscent of the ideals of the gurus. As they partake the bounties of the spring harvest, sing in congregations and eat consecrated food in gurdwaras, they will also reflect on the vision of a humane world where Khalsa Sikhs fight for justice for all in the ever-evolving world, suffused with the spirit of optimism.

Anshu Malhotra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, never wrote things down. He warned that writing undermines memory– that it is nothing but a reminder of some previous thought. Compared to people who discuss and debate, readers “will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing.”

These views may seem peculiar, but his central fear is a timeless one: that technology threatens thought. In the 1950s, Americans panicked about the possibility that advertisers would use subliminal messages hidden in movies to trick consumers into buying things they didn’t really want. Today, the U.S. is in the middle of a similar panic over TikTok, with critics worried about its impact on viewers’ freedom of thought.

To many people, neurotechnologies seem especially threatening, although they are still in their infancy. In January 2024, Elon Musk announced that his company Neuralink had implanted a brain chip in its first human subject – though they accomplished such a feat well after competitors. Fast-forward to March, and that person can already play chess with just his thoughts.

Brain-computer interfaces, called BCIs, have rightfully prompted debate about the appropriate limits of technologies that interact with the nervous system. Looking ahead to the day when wearable and implantable devices may be more widespread, the United Nations has discussed regulations and restrictions on BCIs and related neurotech. Chile has even enshrined neurorights – special protections for brain activity– in its constitution, while other countries are considering doing so.

A cornerstone of neurorights is the idea that all people have a fundamental right to determine what state their brain is in and who is allowed to access that information, the way that people ordinarily have a right to determine what is done with their bodies and property. It’s commonly equated with “freedom of thought.”

Many ethicists and policymakers think this right to mental self-determination is so fundamental that it is never OK to undermine it, and that institutions should impose strict limits on neurotech.

But as my research on neurorights argues, protecting the mind isn’t nearly as easy as protecting bodies and property.

Thoughts vs. things

Creating rules that protect a person’s ability to determine what is done to their body is relatively straightforward. The body has clear boundaries, and things that cross it without permission are not allowed. It is normally obvious when a person violates laws prohibiting assault or battery, for example.

The same is true about regulations that protect a person’s property. Protecting body and property are some of the central reasons people come together to form governments.

Generally, people can enjoy these protections without dramatically limiting how others want to live their lives.

The difficulty with establishing neurorights, on the other hand, is that, unlike bodies and property, brains and minds are under constant influence from outside forces. It’s not possible to fence off a person’s mind such that nothing gets in.

Instead, a person’s thoughts are largely the product of other peoples’ thoughts and actions. Everything from how a person perceives colorsand shapes to our most basic beliefs are influenced by what others say and do. The human mind is like a sponge, soaking up whatever it happens to be immersed in. Regulations might be able to control the types of liquid in the bucket, but they can’t protect the sponge from getting wet.

Even if that were possible – if there were a way to regulate people’s actions so that they don’t influence others’ thoughts at all – the regulations would be so burdensome that no one would be able to do much of anything.

If I’m not allowed to influence others’ thoughts, then I can never leave my house, because just by my doing so I’m causing people to think and act in certain ways. And as the internet further expands a person’s reach, not only would I not be able to leave the house, I also wouldn’t be able to “like” a post on Facebook, leave a product review, or comment on an article.

In other words, protecting one aspect of freedom of thought – someone’s ability to shield themselves from outside influences – can conflict with another aspect of freedom of thought: freedom of speech, or someone’s ability to express ideas.

Neurotech and control

But there’s another concern at play: privacy. People may not be able to completely control what gets into their heads, but they should have significant control over what goes out – and some people believe societies need “neurorights” regulations to ensure that. Neurotech represents a new threat to our ability to control what thoughts people reveal to others.

There are ongoing efforts, for example, to develop wearable neurotech that would read and adjust the customer’s brainwaves to help them improve their mood or get better sleep. Even though such devices can only be used with the consent of the user, they still take information out of the brain, interpret it, store it and use it for other purposes.

In experiments, it is also becoming easier to use technology to gauge someone’s thoughts. Functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, can be used to measure changes in blood flow in the brain and produce images of that activity. Artificial intelligence can then analyze those images to interpret what a person is thinking.

Neurotechnology critics fear that as the field develops, it will be possible to extract information about brain activity regardless of whether or not someone wants to disclose it. Hypothetically, that information could one day be used in a range of contexts, from research for new devices to courts of law.

Regulation may be necessary to protect people from neurotech taking information out. For example, nations could prohibit companies that make commercial neurotech devices, like those meant to improve the wearer’s sleep from storing the brainwave data those devices collect.

Yet I would argue that it may not be necessary, or even feasible, to protect against neurotech putting information into our brains – though it is hard to predict what capabilities neurotech will have even a few years from now.

In part, this is because I believe people tend to overestimate the difference between neurotech and other types of external influence. Think about books. Horror novelist Stephen King has said that writing is telepathy: When an author writes a sentence – say, describing a shotgun over the fireplace – they spark a specific thought in the reader.

In addition, there are already strong protections on bodies and property, which I believe could be used to prosecute anyone who forces invasive or wearable neurotech upon another person.

How different societies will navigate these challenges is an open question. But one thing is certain: With or without neurotech, our control over our own minds is already less absolute than many of us like to think.

Parker Crutchfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

As the largest electorate in history goes to the polls in India from April 19 to June 1, 2024, political parties are seeking to influence voters’ decisions – through cinema.

The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, seeking a third term in office under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has deployed the medium of cinema, more than others, to spread the party’s goals and ideas.

The BJP claims India as a Hindu nation. The Modi government openly supports films that promote the BJP ideology through providing tax breaks and removing regulatory restrictions, especially when such films are strategically timed to release in theaters ahead of the elections. “Swatantrya Veer Savarkar,” a biopic on an ardent advocate of a purely Hindu nation, was released a few weeks before polling begins for the 2024 elections.

India’s entertainment film industry is a complex behemoth with an output of about 1,500 releases per year and a base of fans that extends around the world. Fabulously choreographed dance routines, catchy lyrics, memorable dialogue and historical and religious imagery make it a favored medium of communication – even for political parties.

The use of Indian popular cinema for political ends has a long history – one that predates Indian independence. As an art historian, I documented how cinematic imagery was used to produce a heroic aura around political figures in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu in my 2009 book “Celluloid Deities: The Visual Culture of Cinema and Politics in South India.”

The connection between cinema and politics made it the primary vehicle for the lengthy careers of numerous charismatic politicians – some of them screenwriters and film producers, others leading actors and actresses. Since the 1980s, it also set in motion a nationwide trend of using cinematic means to capture the attention of voters.

Mobilizing film fans for electoral campaigns

Viewing movies in theaters is an eventful and enjoyable experience that draws a mass audience. As sociologist Lakshmi Srinivas describes in her 2016 book “House Full,” the release of highly anticipated blockbusters is much like a festival. Most striking is the excitement of audiences as they recite the dialogues, dance to the lyrics and hail stars as they appear on the screen.

In an Indian context, cinema’s impact extends from the movie theater to the street in the form of advertisements, fashion and film music that dominate public spaces. Art historian Shalini Kakar argues that the spectacle of cinema brings forth passionate responses from viewing masses that are much like religious emotion. She discusses case studies of film fans who even worship their favorite celebrities as deities by creating temples to these stars within residential and commercial spaces. These fans conduct religious ceremonies and organize public festivities for their favored stars.

But more often, fans are part of a large and vocal collective. Media theorist S.V. Srinivas found that film fans can make or destroy the careers and lives of stars. If a star decides to venture into politics, these film fans can become active participants in the star’s political campaigns. But if the star does something that the fans disapprove of, they will as easily boycott his films and even destroy the star’s career.

An alignment of cinema and politics

The cinema industry in Tamil Nadu, more than any other in India, has evolved closely with political and social developments in the region since the 1940s. The ideals of Tamil nationalism, a political movement that changed the course of history in Tamil Nadu, were powerfully communicated through the medium of entertainment films. Often, the personalities associated with these films were physically present alongside politicians at party meetings.

In my research, I found that the alignment of cinema and politics in Tamil Nadu was helped by the use of identical advertising media. Political parties regularly commissioned advertisers to produce “star images” of politicians. A favored publicity medium of both the cinema industry and party members was the hand-painted plywood cutout. These full-length portraits, 20 feet to 100 feet in height, featured charismatic leaders of Tamil nationalist parties such as M. Karunanidhi, a prolific and influential scriptwriter, and J. Jayalalithaa, a famous film star turned politician.

Though these political portraits were meant to be realistic rather than melodramatic, the style and scale of these portraits resembled the cinematic star image. In this way, they helped to transfer the power of the cinematic star image to the image of the leader.

I argued that these advertisements played an important role in visualizing, and shaping, the identity politics of Tamil nationalism.

The audience for these images numbered in the millions. When these vibrantly colored portraits of film stars and political leaders appeared side by side in public spaces, they soared above the skyline like celestial beings. Often, the images became the focus of adulation. They were feted and garlanded, people danced, burst crackers, cheered and crowded around these images, and posed next to them for photographs.

The charismatic politicians of the Tamil nationalist movement set the trend of combining the sheen of the star image, the power of political portraiture and the divine aura of icons in their advertising.

Cinema’s role in divisive politics

Under Modi’s leadership, three themes emerge in a cluster of films that favor the BJP’s goals and policies and are endorsed by the party: claiming credit for welfare initiatives, instilling Hindu nationalist beliefs in society, and heightening tensions between the Hindu majority and Muslim minority communities.

For example, a film released in 2017, “Toilet: Ek Prem ki Katha,” or “Toilet: A Love Story,” tells the story of a couple whose marriage starts to fall apart over the lack of a toilet within the home. At the beginning of the film, which is an entertaining musical melodrama, viewers are informed that while Mahatma Gandhi championed for a clean environment, it is Modi who is making that dream a reality through budgeting for the construction of toilets nationwide.

Another series of films in the biopic genre showcases the historical legacy of right-wing Hindu nationalist organizations and their leaders. “PM Narendra Modi,” which reminded voters of the prime minister’s rise from poverty, was scheduled for release just before the 2019 elections. But the Election Commission of India, an independent body charged with ensuring free and fair elections, ordered that the film could be released only after the elections.

A third and more troubling genre is politically polarizing films. Drawing on ethnically charged actual events in which communities of Hindus and Muslims clashed, the scripts for these films dramatize highly biased narratives in which Hindus are cast as the victims while Muslims are the villainous perpetrators.

Widely viewed examples of this genre include “Kashmir Files,” which shows the mass exodus of Hindus from the north Indian state of Kashmir in the early 1990s when they were targeted by a pro-Pakistan armed uprising of Kashmiri Muslims. The film, which demonizes Muslims and shows them committing extremely barbaric and cruel acts, is among those publicly endorsed by the prime minister himself.

Film producers and distributors I interviewed for my research were unanimous that it was impossible to accurately predict whether a film would succeed at the box office, as are the results of the elections.

Should the BJP succeed, however, it would be fair to conclude that one element in the hat trick was a clever endorsement of cinema as a vehicle for party propaganda.

Preminda Jacob does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Suju Kali is a 50-year-old elephant in Nepal who has been carrying tourists for over 30 years. Like many elephants I encounter through my research, Suju Kali exhibits anxiety and can be aggressive toward strangers. She suffers from emotional trauma as a result of prolonged, commercial human contact.

Like Suju Kali, many animals are trapped within the tourism industry. Some venues have no oversight and little concern for animal or tourist safety. Between 120,000 and 340,000 animals are used globally in a variety of wildlife tourism attractions, including endangered species like elephants. Over a quarter of the world’s endangered elephants reside in captivity with little oversight.

Wildlife tourism – which involves viewing wildlife such as primates or birds in conservation areas, feeding or touching captive or “rehabilitated” wildlife in facilities, and bathing or riding animals like elephants – is tricky business. I know this because I am a researcher studying human relationships with elephants in both tourism and conservation settings within Southeast Asia.

These types of experiences have long been an extremely popular and profitable part of the tourism market. But now, many travel-related organizations are urging people not to participate in, or calling for an outright ban on, interactive wildlife experiences.

Tourism vendors have started marketing more “ethical options” for consumers. Some are attempting to truly improve the health and welfare of wildlife, and some are transitioning captive wildlife into touch-free, non-riding or lower-stress environments. In other places, organizations are attempting to implement standards of care or create manuals that outline good practices for animal husbandry.

This marketing, academics argue, is often simply “greenwashing,” applying marketing labels to make consumers feel better about their choices without making any real changes. Worse, research shows that some programs marketing themselves as ethical tourism may instead be widening economic gaps and harming both humans and other species that they are meant to protect.

No quick fix

For example, rather than tourist dollars trickling down to local struggling families as intended by local governments, many tourism venues are owned by nonresidents, meaning the profits do not stay in the area. Likewise, only a small number of residents can afford to own tourism venues, and venues do not provide employment for locals from lower income groups.

This economic gap is especially obvious in Nepalese elephant stables: Venue owners continue to make money off elephants, while elephant caregivers continue to work 17 hours a day for about US$21 a month; tourists are led to believe they are “promoting sustainability.”

Yet, there are no easy answers, especially for elephants working in tourism. Moving them to sanctuaries is difficult because with no governmental or global welfare oversight, elephants may end up in worse conditions.

Many kindhearted souls who want to “help” elephants know little about their biology and mental health needs, or what it takes to keep them healthy. Also, feeding large animals like Suju Kali is pricey, costing around $19,000 yearly. So without profits from riding or other income, owners – or would-be rescuers – can’t maintain elephants. Releasing captive elephants to the jungle is not a choice – many have never learned to live in the wild, so they cannot survive on their own.

Hurting local people

Part of the problem lies with governments, as many have marketed tourism as a way to fund conservation projects. For example in Nepal, a percentage of ticket sales from elephant rides are given to community groups to use for forest preservation and support for local families.

Increasing demand for wildlife-based tourism may increase traffic in the area and thus put pressure on local governments to further limit local people’s access to forest resources.

This may also lead to increased demands on local communities, as was the case in Nepal. In the 1970s, the Nepalese government removed local people from their lands in what is now Chitwan National Park as part of increasing “conservation efforts” and changed the protected area’s boundaries. Indigenous “Tharu,” or people of the forest, were forced to abandon their villages and land. While some were offered access to “buffer zones” in the 1990s, many remain poor and landless today.

In addition, more and more desirable land surrounding conservation areas in Nepal is being developed for tourist-based businesses such as hotels, restaurants and shops, pushing local poor people farther away from central village areas and the associated tourism income.

Some activists would like humans to simply release all wildlife back into the wild, but there are multiple issues with that. Elephant habitats throughout Southeast Asia have been transformed into croplands, cities or train tracks for human use. Other problems arise from the fact that tourism elephants have never learned how to be elephants in their natural elements, as they were separated from their herds at an early age.

So tourism may be vital to providing food, care and shelter to captive elephants for the rest of their lives and providing jobs for those who really need them. Because elephants can live beyond 60 years, this can be a large commitment.

How to be an ethical tourist

To protect elephants, tourists should check out reviews and photos from any venue they want to visit, and look for clues that animal welfare might be impacted, such as tourists allowed to feed, hold or ride captive wildlife animals. Look for healthy animals, which means doing research on what “healthy” animals of that species should look like.

If a venue lists no-touch demonstrations – “unnatural” behaviors that don’t mimic what an elephant might do of their own accord, such as sitting on a ball or riding a bike, or other performances – remember that the behind-the-scenes training used to achieve these behaviors can be violent, traumatic or coercive.

Another way to help people and elephant is to to use small, local companies to book your adventures in your area of interest, rather than paying large, international tourism agencies. Look for locally owned hotels, and wait to book excursions until you arrive so you can use local service providers. Book homestay programs and attend cultural events led by community members; talk to tourists and locals you meet in the target town to get their opinions, and use local guides who provide wildlife viewing opportunities while maintaining distance from animals.

Or tourists can ask to visit venues that are certified by international humane animal organizations and that do not allow contact with wildlife. Or they can opt for guided hikes, canoe or kayak experiences, and other environmentally friendly options.

While these suggestions will not guarantee that your excursion is animal-friendly, they will help decrease your impact on wildlife, support local families and encourage venues to stop using elephants as entertainment. Those are good first steps.

Michelle Szydlowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

My students tend to imagine the Middle Ages as something like the “Kingdom Come” or “Total War” video games: an age of utter political chaos, when swords and daggers ruled, and masculinity and physical strength mattered more than governance.

As a historian of the Middle Ages, I believe this turbulent image has less to do with reality than with medievalism– a term for how modern people have reimagined life during Europe’s Middle Ages, from roughly 400-1400.

Medieval Europe may have been violent, and its standards for governance would not win praise today. But people could certainly recognize dysfunctional politics, whether in a royal court or in the church, and proposed solutions.

At a time of rising authoritarianism, and when U.S. politics seem mired in chaos, it’s worth looking back at how societies centuries ago defined bad governance.

Tyrants, kings and bad bishops

Authors in the Middle Ages thought about politics in terms of leadership and often called bad politics “tyranny,” whether they were criticizing one leader or a whole system. In any case, tyranny – or autocracy, as it’s often called today – is a concept great thinkers had been discussing since antiquity.

For ancient Greeks, tyranny meant ruling single-handedly for the benefit of one. Aristotle, the foundational thinker on the topic, defined tyranny as the antithesis of perfect rulership, which he believed was kingship: a single ruler ruling for the general interest of all. In his view, a tyrant was controlled by desire for “power, pleasure and wealth,” while a king was driven by honor.

Modern political theorist Roger Boesche observed that tyrants tend to decrease the population’s leisure time. According to Aristotle, free time allowed people to think and “do” politics – that is, to be citizens.

During the Roman Republic, political thinkers compared tyranny to a diseased limb that needed to be cut off the body politic. Ironically, certain Romans eliminated Julius Ceasar for fear he was becoming a tyrant – only to get Augustus, who eventually became an emperor.

Types of despots

In late antiquity, political writers began to think about tyranny in religious leadership, as well.

In his “Sententiae,” a set of books on theology, the seventh century archbishop Isidore of Seville broached the subject of bad bishops. These men conducted themselves like “proud pastors,” he wrote, who “tyrannically oppress the common people, they do not guide them, and they demand of their subjects not the glory of God but their own.” In general, Isidore criticized political incompetence grounded in the leader’s anger, pride, cruelty and greed.

Centuries later, European leaders and writers were still debating the nature of tyranny – and what do to about it.

John of Salisbury, a bishop and philosopher in 12th century England, proposed quite a radical solution: tyrannicide. In “Policraticus,” writings about political theory, he wrote that it was a duty to redress the order of things and kill a tyrant who was evil, violent and oppressive.

In John’s organic conception of tyranny, however, a tyrant (the body) could exist only with the support of society (its limbs). He was one of the earliest authors to argue that tyranny survived not simply by the whim of the tyrant but with the support of his followers.

By the 14th century, the leading legal thinker of the time, Bartolus de Sassoferrato, differentiated between two types of tyranny. Despots came to power through legal means but acted unlawfully. He defined usurpers, on the other hand, as rulers who assumed power illegitimately, wallowed in pride and did not follow the law.

Taking down a tyrant

At times, disliked or “inconvenient” leaders were deposed, such as England’s Richard II. The record of his deposition itemized almost three dozen charges against the dethroned king: from rejecting council, defaulting on loans and exhorting religious authorities to murdering, disinheriting and impeaching rivals. We know that he did not end well: He died during imprisonment in 1400, though exactly how is a mystery.

In Germany, King Wenceslaus of the house of Luxembourg was deposed on Aug. 20, 1400, on grounds of being a “useless, indolent, careless divider and unworthy owner of the empire.” The German newspaper Die Welt ranks him as the worst king of Germany– fond of drink and his hunting dogs, and possessed by fits of rage.

Violent disposals of supposed “tyrants” were not always done in the shadows. In 1407, Louis of Orléans, brother of King Charles VI of France, rode unknowingly into a deadly trap. He was assaulted by a large group of men who escaped and chased onlookers away.

Louis was not only brother to Charles “the Mad,” but a political rival of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, with both men vying for control during the king’s bouts of mental illness. John assumed responsibility for ordering the murder.

He and the lawyer he hired, a theologian named Jean Petit, argued that Burgundy had acted in the interest of the nation by ordering the death of a treasonous and greedy tyrant, and that Louis’ killing was therefore justified.

Men of the cloth

Medieval politics did not differentiate much between the secular and religious worlds. Popes were political leaders and could be considered tyrants, too.

During the Great Western Schism of 1378-1417, a split in the Catholic Church when multiple popes competed for the throne, all parties insulted each other with claims of illegitimacy and usurpation.

Enemies of Pope Urban VI, for example, argued a telltale sign of tyranny was his uncontrollable anger, which disqualified him for leadership. Dietrich of Nieheim, who worked at the papal chancery, noted in his chronicle, “The more he spoke, the more Lord Urban became angry, and his face finally became like a burning lamp or fiery flame from anger, and his throat was filled with hoarseness.” French cardinals deposed Urban in 1378 on grounds of illegitimacy and tyranny.

He was not the only pope unseated for being tyrannical, even if that exact word was not used. The Council of Constance, a council of European clergymen convened to end the schism, deposed Pope John XXIII in 1415 on grounds ranging from disobedience and corruption to poor administration, dishonesty and obstinacy. Two years later, the same council deposed Pope Benedict XIII, accusing him of persecution, disturbing the peace, fostering division, promoting scandal and schism, and unworthiness.

Medieval bishops and kings are hardly role models for democracies today, but their political world was not so chaotic as we often imagine. Even a world ignorant of democracy attempted to define what bad leadership was and set limits on the authority of the ones they considered irresponsible. Rules of adequate political conduct were established, though the law did not always take precedence over violence.

But it’s worthwhile to remember the ways people have viewed bad leadership, hundreds of years before our own era’s fractured politics. Today, however, we have a big advantage: We vote our leaders in and out.

Joelle Rollo-Koster does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

India’s government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, implemented the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, or CAA, in March 2024.

Opponents of the law – which fast-tracks citizenship for undocumented, non-Muslim migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan – decry the ways in which it discriminates against Muslims.

As they did when the law was passed in 2019, many Indians took to the streets.

The demonstrations were more muted this time, though some protesters were detained by the police. The government, perhaps fearing a reprise, had increased police patrols and deployed paramilitary troops in places that had been hotbeds of protest.

Four years ago, university campuses and Muslim neighborhoods such as Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh were packed with people who, day after day, chanted slogans, belted out songs and recited poetry.

Poetry seemed to unsettle the government the most. Dissenters reciting protest poems were accused of spreading hate against India, beaten and arrested by the police.

Poet Hussain Haidry rose to fame in the 2019-2020 protests. Haidry, who’s also a Bollywood lyricist and scriptwriter, penned anti-CAA poems that became a rallying cry against the government, particularly “Tum Dekhogey,” or “You will see” in English.

I first heard “Tum Dekhogey” in 2020 when Haidry recited it at a lecture at Columbia University on the anti-CAA protests.

As a scholar and translator of Urdu poetry, I was moved by the ways in which the poem described the state’s violence against peaceful protesters. I went on to translate the poem, and I’m currently writing about it for my forthcoming book, “Urdu Poetry and Politics in Contemporary India.”

For me, the poem crystallizes the disturbing turn of events in a country that once prized secularism, democracy and free expression. Because poems like Haidry’s directly challenge state power, the government and its supporters seek to portray them as seditious and anti-Indian.

A secularist ethos squelched

The CAA was passed in 1955, a few years after India’s freedom from colonial rule in 1947.

It was intended to formalize citizenship for everyone living in India since 1949, as well as those born in India since or before that date.

But in 2019, the right-wing government changed this law to allow migrants of religious groups from neighboring Muslim majority countries to apply for citizenship.

There was one exception: Muslim migrants.

In one fell swoop, this new law erased India’s constitutional guarantee to grant citizenship to people of all religions. Most of India’s poor do not have formal citizenship papers, even if their families have lived in the country for generations. If they happen to be Muslim, they can no longer apply.

This law – in tandem with plans to create a National Register of Citizens, which would require all Indians to show proof of citizenship – would effectively render millions of India’s Muslims, lower castes and the poor ineligible for government benefits. They would be unable to vote and would face a constant threat of displacement from the country of their birth.

Delhi-based lawyer Gautam Bhatia has argued that dividing alleged migrants into Muslims and non-Muslims “explicitly and blatantly seeks to enshrine religious discrimination into law, contrary to our long-standing, secular constitutional ethos.”

In 2019, the passing of these laws by the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s Parliament, was met with nationwide protests. The most prominent was the Muslim women-led 101-day sit-in at Shaheen Bagh. Due to protests and widespread outcry, the implementation of the law was put on hold.

‘We will toss your crowns’

Perhaps the most recited poem at Shaheen Bagh and other sites during the 2019 protests was Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Urdu poem “Hum Dekhenge” – or “We Will See.”

Faiz, who was born in pre-partitioned India in a region of the country that is now part of Pakistan, had written the poem in 1979 to protest the regime of Muhammad Zia ul Haq, Pakistan’s sixth president. Upon assuming power, Zia put the country under martial law and ruled as a military dictator while furthering the Islamization of Pakistan’s political and cultural life.

It might seem strange that a poem written to protest a Pakistani ruler several decades earlier was being used to protest Indian laws. But in South Asia, there’s a long tradition of reciting poetry as a form of protest, and poems from the past often evolve to become freshly relevant.

While many of these poems appear in print, the tradition is primarily an oral one– they are recited as poems and sung as songs at marches, protests and on university campuses. As a result, they can reside in the popular imagination decades after their publication.

In 2019, Faiz’s 1979 poem became a stirring riposte to the Modi government’s attempts to marginalize India’s Muslims.

Just as Pakistani protesters chanted the line “Sab taj uchale jayenge, sab takht giraye jayenge” – “We will toss your crowns, we will topple your thrones” – to decry Zia’s authoritarian regime, Indian protesters recited those same lines to denounce Modi’s rule.

‘I was there and so were you’

Haidry was at Shaheen Bagh during the 2019 protests. Inspired by the women’s activism, he wrote “Tum Dekhogey” as a riff on “Hum Dekhenge.”

While Faiz’s poem speaks of the power of the people to overthrow tyranny, Haidry’s poem is written from the perspective of the women of Shaheen Bagh. It lambastes the silent bystanders who do nothing as hardcore Hindu nationalists – who believe in Hindu supremacy – terrorize religious minorities.

 You will see
 Yes, you too will see
 This night spent on the streets, 
 this ice in our breath,
 This brutal, unjust night, 
 this too will be your fate  
 When the tyrant attacks you, you stifle your screams
 When you beg for justice, you are battered instead
 When trapped in saffron cages, 
 eating roti dipped in water –  
 Our slaughtered faces will appear before you
 We will curse you, we will spit on you
 And Hindustan will be but a hollow word – 
 scared, cowardly 
 hell, slaughterhouse – and you will lament:
 I was there and so were you
 Then the tyrant will laugh and say:
 I was there and so were you

(trans. Krupa Shandilya)

The poem begins by setting the stage.

“This night on the street, this ice in our breath” is a reference to the frigid winter nights that the women of Shaheen Bagh endured during their sit-in, when they had no access to heat or electricity. Those who watched and did nothing, Haidry warns, will one day meet the same fate as these women.

The next two lines speak to the various injustices endured by peaceful protesters – the “attacks” and “battering” at the hands of the state. Next the text suggests that Hindu nationalists trap regular citizens in “saffron cages.” Saffron is a reference to the color used by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP. The cage can be thought of as a metaphorical one – of an India without fundamental rights. But it can also refer to the actual jail sentences being meted out to protesters.

The poem goes on to suggest that once the CAA becomes law, these silent bystanders will finally wake up and come to see that India has become a living “hell” and a “slaughterhouse.” When they lament their inaction, the tyrant will mock them – “laugh and say: / I was there and so were you.”

Haidry’s lyrical indictment of the government has enraged supporters of Modi and the BJP.

Because Haidry is also a Bollywood scriptwriter, there have been calls to boycott“Takht,” a film he worked on. And when singer and activist Kiran Ahluwalia, who lives in New York, posted a rendition of “Tum Dekhogey” on Instagram on March 18, 2024, she had the renewal of her Overseas Citizen of India card, a type of second passport, denied – a tactic often employed by the Modi government to punish dissenters.

Despite these attempts to suppress protest, the words of poets like Haidry continue to resonate.

Such is the beauty of poetry, which can slip through the bars of saffron cages with ease, speaking truth to power and oppression.

I am a personal friend of Kiran Ahluwalia.

In August 1982, Ronald Reagan’s father-in-law was dying. Nancy Reagan’s beloved dad, Loyal Davis, was an atheist – a troubling fact to the 40th president. So Reagan penned a private, handwritten note in which he recounted how the prayers of colleagues and friends had cured him of a painful stomach ulcer.

Giving hope for what lay beyond, Reagan entreated the older man, “We’ve been promised this is only a part of life and that a greater life, a greater glory awaits us … and all that is required is that you believe and tell God you put yourself in his hands.”

For decades, some of Reagan’s critics have questioned his religiosity, noting he rarely went to church. But the missive to his father-in-law reveals a deep and heartfelt faith. That faith also factored heavily into his political stands and policies, as I discuss in my book “Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision.”

In recent years, Donald Trump, another former president and the current Republican presidential candidate, has often spoken about his faith, posing for photo ops with right-wing preachers and praising his “favorite book” – the Bible.

The latest such demonstration was a video in which Trump promoted sales of a pricey US$59.99 version of the Bible. “Let’s make America pray again,” he urged viewers. “As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless the USA Bible.”

While Reagan and Trump – two of the most media-savvy Republican presidents – used religion to advance their political visions, their messages and missions are starkly different.

Why religion plays a part in politics

In my book, I explain that underlying American politics is a religious vision that links citizens to civic values. The most prevalent vision is that God blessed America and tasked its citizens with spreading freedom and democracy. It’s an idea that has undergirded Americans’ patriotism and inspired American domestic and foreign policies for decades.

Reagan telegraphed belief in a God-blessed America by describing the United States as “a shining city on a hill.” Reagan flipped the original meaning of a Biblical phrase from a 17th century Puritan sermon. In Matthew 5:14, Jesus warns that the world will judge whether or not his disciples, a symbolic city on a hill, stick to their ideals. By adding “shining,” Reagan sanctified American exceptionalism and the United States’ role as a global model of freedom.

Once elected, Reagan sought practical ways to apply his faith in freedom, which, like many evangelicals, he believed came from God. By cutting taxes, ending industry regulations and privatizing government functions, he hoped to give individuals more economic and political freedom.

Reagan’s love of freedom also fueled his hostility to the Soviet Union. He labeled its communist government “an evil empire,” because it denied its citizens freedom. Casting a geopolitical stance as a cosmic battle between good and evil, Reagan made defeating communism a religious calling.

I argue that Reagan’s evangelical vision was mainstreamed through the media, which reported his interviews and public statements. This vision was not always apparent, but Americans liked his policies even if they missed their religious dimension. In other words, when Reagan proposed allowing the free market to determine the economy, limiting federal power and standing up for democracy worldwide, one didn’t need to be an evangelical to agree.

A new religious vision

Trump saw an opening for a new kind of religiously tinged politics when he ran for president in 2016. But unlike Reagan’s vision of spreading freedom and democracy here and abroad, Trump’s vision sticks closer to home.

I would argue that Trump’s religious vision is rooted in white Christian nationalism, the belief that the white Christians who founded America hoped to spread Protestant beliefs and ideals. According to white Christian nationalists, the founders also wanted to limit the influence of non-Christian immigrants and enslaved Africans.

Likewise, Trump’s rhetoric, mainstreamed by the media, portrays “real” Americans as white Christians. Many of these are men and women fearful that secularists and religious, racial and ethnic minorities want to replace, if not eliminate, them.

By most measures, Trump is not personally religious, although supporters contest that claim. But he has convinced conservative Americans, especially white evangelicals, that he is “God’s instrument on earth.”

When confronted with his financial misconduct, sexual crimes and outrageous lies, backers say that God works through flawed men. And evidence of that work – the U.S. Supreme Court overturning abortion rights, building the border wall and moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – has won him their support.

Trump’s mainstreaming of white Christian nationalism is evident in his latest scheme. The God Bless the USA Bible sports an American flag on its cover. Included with scripture is the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Pledge of Allegiance and the handwritten lyrics to singer Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” A portion of the sales will benefit Trump’s organization.

Christianity and nationalism hand in hand

Trump rejects America’s role as the “shining city on a hill” and its mission to spread freedom and democracy. His goal is to restore what he calls the “founding fathers’ vision.” It’s a vision shared by Americans who think the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, despite proof to the contrary.

Religion can be a force for good or ill. Reagan believed that his religious vision would promote individual freedom and spread democracy worldwide. Americans may agree or disagree on whether he was successful and at what cost.

But Trump’s religious vision – one that hawks Bibles, disparages democracy and mocks governance– isn’t one that Reagan would recognize.

Diane Winston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Taylor Swift isn’t just a billionaire songwriter and performer. She’s also a philosopher.

As a Swiftie and a philosopher, I’ve found that this claim surprises Swifties and philosophers alike. But once her fans learn a bit more about philosophy – and philosophers learn a bit more about Swift’s work – both groups can appreciate her songwriting in new ways.

Looking in the mirror

When one of the greatest philosophers, Socrates, famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” he was arguing that people cannot even know whether they are living a meaningful life unless they subject their choices and their values to scrutiny.

Like other great writers, Swift’s songwriting consistently involves just the kind of introspective scrutiny about choices and values that Socrates had in mind. Several songs address the value of self-understanding, even when it’s difficult.

Amid a breakup, the narrator in “Happiness” sings, “Honey, when I’m above the trees I see this for what it is.” Yet she describes how it can be hard to maintain an objective perspective on a relationship while also navigating the end of it. “And in the disbelief I can’t face reinvention / I haven’t met the new me yet,” she sings. Her partner is looking for “the green light of forgiveness,” when she tells them that “You haven’t met the new me yet / And I think she’ll give you that.”

The Swift-like narrator in “Anti-hero” makes a similar point about the challenges of self-awareness. “I’ll stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror,” she sings, referencing how it’s often easier to identify truths about the external world than to face facts about oneself, and that her tendency toward self-deception limits her ability to become wiser with age.

Everyone inherits a set of beliefs and assumptions from their parents, peers and culture, which can inhibit our ability to truly understand others and ourselves.

In Swift’s “Daylight,” she describes how she once viewed relationships as “black and white” or “burning red.” Letting go of those old, reductive narratives enabled her to see her relationships – and herself – more clearly. She’s emerged from what she describes as a “twenty-year dark night” to see the more complicated, liberating truth: daylight.

Argue toward truth

Socrates showed that the best way to scrutinize one’s choices and values is through sustained, sometimes argumentative, conversation with others. To a nonphilosopher, philosophy often looks like devil’s advocacy or trolling – arguing just for the sake of it. But to philosophers, disagreeableness is a virtue that helps counteract reflexive dogmatism and conformity.

Swift, too, is argumentative in her songwriting, often making a moral argument to an imagined listener – frequently, a romantic partner. In other lyrics, Swift rebuts unfair critics and record executives.

Recently, her lyrics have begun to address more public issues, like the promise and futility of politics. At first glance, “Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince,” released in 2019, is a coming-of-age song about teenage relationship drama. However, Swift is also describing her own political awakening and disillusionment when she writes, “My team is losing, battered and bruising.” Lyrics like, “American stories burning before me” and “You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes” further reinforce a parable about political despair.

At the same time, other songs develop arguments for the promise of advocating for political change. In “Only The Young” she addresses someone who sees that “The game was rigged,” reminding them “They aren’t gonna change this / We gotta do it ourselves … Only the young can run.”

Swift’s nonpolitical songwriting also has implications for long-standing ethical debates. In “Gorgias,” a dialogue written by Socrates’ student Plato, the philosopher asks whether it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it – a theme that appears in several Swift songs.

Socrates argued it is better to suffer injustice, because committing injustice is an affront to one’s own dignity and integrity. In her 2022 song “Karma,” Swift seemingly agrees: “Don’t you know that cash ain’t the only price?” of immorality, before she warns her listener that karma’s “coming back around.”

True − and false

For philosophers, every aspect of the human experience is fair game for further analysis. As the 20th century American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars wrote, the purpose of philosophy should be “to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term.”

By holding people’s beliefs to logical standards of consistency and coherence, philosophical analysis reveals contradictions in an effort to discover what’s really true.

Swift’s songwriting addresses some of the trickiest paradoxes, such as whether there is even such a thing as a true, authentic self.

Tackling the question in “Mirrorball,” she seems to endorse the view that one’s sense of self is largely strategic, socially constructed to fit the situation. “I’m a mirrorball, I’ll show you every version of yourself,” she sings before stating, “I can change everything about me to fit in” and “I’ve never been a natural. All I do is try, try, try.”

Similarly, in “Mastermind,” Swift describes calculatedly trying to win someone’s affection when she sings, “I swear I’m only cryptic and Machiavellian ‘cause I care.” In both songs, Swift points out how authentic displays of vulnerability can also be a form of strategic speech, prompting the listener to wonder whether genuine authenticity is possible.

Another tricky paradox in philosophy involves the idea of supererogation, which refers to acts that are morally good but not morally required. This idea also allows that acts can be “suberogatory,” meaning that they are morally bad but nevertheless permissible.

Songs like “Champagne Problems” and “Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve” explore this paradoxical space, describing cases where someone made a morally criticizable choice that they were nevertheless entirely within their rights to make.

Relatedly, Swift is also interested in paradoxes of moral psychology. Songs like “This Is Me Trying,” “Illicit Affairs” and “False God” reflect on the philosophical concept of akrasia: cases where people seemingly know they shouldn’t do something but do it anyway.

A lot of the philosophical literature about akrasia asks whether it’s even possible: If someone believes their decision is wrong or bad for them, why would they do it? But through her lyrics, Swift sketches psychologically realistic vignettes that suggest genuine akrasia is at least possible and probably happening all the time – from sabotaging a loving relationship to pursuing one that “we were crazy to think … could work.”

Philosophy uses the conventions of logic and poetry to help people see the world more clearly. A successful philosophical conversation will involve making rational appeals – logic – that are also emotionally resonant – poetry.

But academic philosophers cannot claim to be the only people who deploy logic and poetry to advance understanding of the human condition, the world around us and the nature of justice. Songwriters like Taylor Swift can be philosophers too.

Jessica Flanigan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

From childhood, we are told that patience is a virtue and that good things will come to those who wait. And, so, many of us work on cultivating patience.

This often starts by learning to wait for a turn with a coveted toy. As adults, it becomes trying to remain patient with long lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles, misbehaving kids or the slow pace of political change. This hard work can have mental health benefits. It is even correlated with per capita income and productivity.

But it is also about trying to become a good person.

It’s clear to me, as a scholar of religious ethics, that patience is a term many of us use, but we all could benefit from understanding its meaning a little better.

In religious traditions, patience is more than waiting, or even more than enduring a hardship. But what is that “more,” and how does being patient make us better people?

The writings of medieval Islamic thinker Abu Hamid al-Ghazali can give us insights or help us understand why we need to practice patience – and also when not to be patient.

Who was al-Ghazali?

Born in Iran in 1058, al-Ghazali was widely respected as a jurist, philosopher and theologian. He traveled to places as far as Baghdad and Jerusalem to defend Islam and argued there was no contradiction between reason and revelation. More specifically, he was well known for reconciling Aristotle’s philosophy, which he likely read in Arabic translation, with Islamic theology.

Al-Ghazali was a prolific writer, and one of his most important works – “Revival of the Religious Sciences,” or the “Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn” – provides a practical guide for living an ethical Muslim life.

This work is composed of 40 volumes in total, divided into four parts of 10 books each. Part 1 deals with Islamic rituals; Part 2, local customs; Part 3, vices to be avoided; and Part 4, virtues one should strive for. Al-Ghazali’s discussion of patience comes in Volume 32 of Part 4, “On Patience and Thankfulness,” or the “Kitāb al-sabr waʾl-shukr.”

He describes patience as a fundamental human characteristic that is crucial to achieving value-driven goals, and he provides a caveat for when impatience is called for.

1. What is patience?

Humans, according to al-Ghazali, have competing impulses: the impulse of religion, or “bāʿith al-dīn,” and the impulse of desire, or “bāʿith al-hawā.”

Life is a struggle between these two impulses, which he describes with the metaphor of a battle: “Support for the religious impulse comes from the angels reinforcing the troops of God, while support for the impulse of desire comes from the devils reinforcing the enemies of God.”

The amount of patience we have is what decides who wins the battle. As al-Ghazali puts it, “If a man remains steadfast until the religious impulse conquers … then the troops of God are victorious and he joins the troops of the patient. But if he slackens and weakens until appetite overcomes him … he joins the followers of the devils.” In other words, for al-Ghazali, patience is the deciding factor of whether we are living up to our full human potential to live ethically.

2. Patience, values and goals

Patience is also necessary for being a good Muslim, in al-Ghazali’s view. But his understanding of how patience works rests on a theory of ethics and can be applied outside of his explicitly Islamic worldview.

It all starts with commitments to core values. For a Muslim like al-Ghazali, those values are informed by the Islamic tradition and community, or “umma,” and include things like justice and mercy. These specific values might be universally applicable. Or you might also have another set of values that are important to you. Perhaps a commitment to social justice, or being a good friend, or not lying.

Living in a way that is consistent with these core values is what the moral life is all about. And patience, according to al-Ghazali, is how we consistently make sure our actions serve this purpose.

That means patience is not just enduring the pain of a toddler’s temper tantrum. It is enduring that pain with a goal in mind. The successful application of patience is measured not by how much pain we endure but by our progress toward a specific goal, such as raising a healthy and happy child who can eventually regulate their emotions.

In al-Ghazali’s understanding of patience, we all need it in order to remain committed to our core principles and ideas when things aren’t going our way.

3. When impatience is called for

One critique of the idea of patience is that it can lead to inaction or be used to silence justified complaints. For instance, scholar of Africana studies Julius Fleming argues in his book “Black Patience” for the importance of a “radical refusal to wait” under conditions of systemic racism. Certainly, there are forms of injustice and suffering in the world that we should not calmly endure.

Despite his commitment to the importance of patience to a moral life, al-Ghazali makes room for impatience as well. He writes, “One is forbidden to be patient with harm (that is) forbidden; for example, to have one’s hand cut off or to witness the cutting off of the hand of a son and to remain silent.”

These are examples of harms to oneself or to loved ones. But could the necessity for impatience be extended to social harms, such as systemic racism or poverty? And as Quranic studies scholars Ahmad Ismail and Ahmad Solahuddin have argued, true patience sometimes necessitates action.

As al-Ghazali writes, “Just because patience is half of faith, do not imagine that it is all commendable; what is intended are specific kinds of patience.”

To sum up, not all patience is good; only patience that is in service of righteous goals is key to the ethical life. The question of which goals are righteous is one we must all answer for ourselves.

Liz Bucar received funding from Templeton Religion Trust to support work on this topic.

A chatbot turns hostile. A test version of a Roomba vacuum collects images of users in private situations. A Black woman is falsely identified as a suspect on the basis of facial recognition software, which tends to be less accurate at identifying women and people of color.

These incidents are not just glitches, but examples of more fundamental problems. As artificial intelligence and machine learning tools become more integrated into daily life, ethical considerations are growing, from privacy issues and race and gender biases in coding to the spread of misinformation.

The general public depends on software engineers and computer scientists to ensure these technologies are created in a safe and ethical manner. As a sociologist and doctoral candidate interested in science, technology, engineering and math education, we are currently researching how engineers in many different fields learn and understand their responsibilities to the public.

Yet our recent research, as well as that of other scholars, points to a troubling reality: The next generation of engineers often seem unprepared to grapple with the social implications of their work. What’s more, some appear apathetic about the moral dilemmas their careers may bring – just as advances in AI intensify such dilemmas.

Aware, but unprepared

As part of our ongoing research, we interviewed more than 60 electrical engineering and computer science masters students at a top engineering program in the United States. We asked students about their experiences with ethical challenges in engineering, their knowledge of ethical dilemmas in the field and how they would respond to scenarios in the future.

First, the good news: Most students recognized potential dangers of AI and expressed concern about personal privacy and the potential to cause harm – like how race and gender biases can be written into algorithms, intentionally or unintentionally.

One student, for example, expressed dismay at the environmental impact of AI, saying AI companies are using “more and more greenhouse power, [for] minimal benefits.” Others discussed concerns about where and how AIs are being applied, including for military technology and to generate falsified information and images.

When asked, however, “Do you feel equipped to respond in concerning or unethical situations?” students often said no.

“Flat out no. … It is kind of scary,” one student replied. “Do YOU know who I’m supposed to go to?”

Another was troubled by the lack of training: “I [would be] dealing with that with no experience. … Who knows how I’ll react.”

Other researchers have similarly found that many engineering students do not feel satisfied with the ethics training they do receive. Common training usually emphasizes professional codes of conduct, rather than the complex socio-technical factors underlying ethical decision-making. Research suggests that even when presented with particular scenarios or case studies, engineering students often struggle to recognize ethical dilemmas.

‘A box to check off’

Accredited engineering programs are required to “include topics related to professional and ethical responsibilities” in some capacity.

Yet ethics training is rarely emphasized in the formal curricula. A study assessing undergraduate STEM curricula in the U.S. found that coverage of ethical issues varied greatly in terms of content, amount and how seriously it is presented. Additionally, an analysis of academic literature about engineering education found that ethics is often considered nonessential training.

Many engineering faculty express dissatisfaction with students’ understanding, but report feeling pressure from engineering colleagues and students themselves to prioritize technical skills in their limited class time.

Researchers in one 2018 study interviewed over 50 engineering faculty and documented hesitancy – and sometimes even outright resistance– toward incorporating public welfare issues into their engineering classes. More than a quarter of professors they interviewed saw ethics and societal impacts as outside “real” engineering work.

About a third of students we interviewed in our ongoing research project share this seeming apathy toward ethics training, referring to ethics classes as “just a box to check off.”

“If I’m paying money to attend ethics class as an engineer, I’m going to be furious,” one said.

These attitudes sometimes extend to how students view engineers’ role in society. One interviewee in our current study, for example, said that an engineer’s “responsibility is just to create that thing, design that thing and … tell people how to use it. [Misusage] issues are not their concern.”

One of us, Erin Cech, followed a cohort of 326 engineering students from four U.S. colleges. This research, published in 2014, suggested that engineers actually became less concerned over the course of their degree about their ethical responsibilities and understanding the public consequences of technology. Following them after they left college, we found that their concerns regarding ethics did not rebound once these new graduates entered the workforce.

Joining the work world

When engineers do receive ethics training as part of their degree, it seems to work.

Along with engineering professor Cynthia Finelli, we conducted a survey of over 500 employed engineers. Engineers who received formal ethics and public welfare training in school are more likely to understand their responsibility to the public in their professional roles, and recognize the need for collective problem solving. Compared to engineers who did not receive training, they were 30% more likely to have noticed an ethical issue in their workplace and 52% more likely to have taken action.

Over a quarter of these practicing engineers reported encountering a concerning ethical situation at work. Yet approximately one-third said they have never received training in public welfare – not during their education, and not during their career.

This gap in ethics education raises serious questions about how well-prepared the next generation of engineers will be to navigate the complex ethical landscape of their field, especially when it comes to AI.

To be sure, the burden of watching out for public welfare is not shouldered by engineers, designers and programmers alone. Companies and legislators share the responsibility.

But the people who are designing, testing and fine-tuning this technology are the public’s first line of defense. We believe educational programs owe it to them – and the rest of us – to take this training seriously.

Elana Goldenkoff receives funding from National Science Foundation and Schmidt Futures.

Erin A. Cech receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

The Jewish festival of Passover recalls the biblical story of the Israelites enslaved by Egypt and their miraculous escape. During a ritual feast known as a Seder, families celebrate this ancient story of deliverance, with each new generation reminded to never take freedom for granted.

Every year, a written guide known as a “Haggadah” is read at the Seder table. The core text comprises a description of ritual foods, the story of the Exodus, blessings, commentaries, hymns and songs. The word Haggadah – “telling,” in Hebrew – was derived from Exodus 13:8, a verse which instructed the Israelites to commemorate their liberation and tell the story to their children.

Even though the ancient festival that became Passover has been celebrated since the biblical period, the complete text of the Haggadah emerged only in the eight to ninth centuries. And it was not until the 14th century that fully developed, sumptuously illuminated versions emerged, used by the Jewish communities of Germany, Italy and Spain. Medieval editors integrated decorative borders, such as fantastical, beastlike creatures borrowed from the wider culture.

This artistic license, together with slight modifications to the text over time, meant that the Haggadah became both a mirror and a commentary on the societies in which they were produced. Here at the University of Florida’s Price Library of Judaica, where I am curator and a medieval Hebrew scholar, we have hundreds of Haggadahs – each one a window into how Jews in a particular time and place adapted the telling of the Passover story.

An illustrated classic

One of the greatest examples our library has of this blending of cultures was printed in Amsterdam in 1695.

The Amsterdam Haggadah was illustrated by Abraham Bar Yaakov, a German pastor who converted to Judaism. Abandoning the standard use of woodcut images, Bar Yaakov created a series of copper engravings based on Bible illustrations by the Swiss engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder. In addition, he incorporated a pull-out map of the route of the Exodus and an imaginative rendering of the Temple in Jerusalem.

Bar Yaakov also added an image of the “four sons” standing together – one of the many elements of Haggadahs designed to engage and instruct children sitting through the long Seder meal. Each son represents a different type of child, described by their attitude toward Passover: wise, wicked, silent and one who does not even know how to ask questions about the holiday.

In medieval Haggadahs, the wicked son was usually portrayed as a combatant – the personification of evil for European Jews who had suffered recurrent mob raids and violent expulsions. In Bar Yaakov’s rendering, the wicked son is a Roman soldier precariously balanced on one foot and looking back toward the wise son, who is depicted as Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who battled Rome in the third century B.C.E.

The second edition of this Haggadah was printed with additional engravings in 1712 by Solomon Proops, founder of an acclaimed Dutch Jewish printing house. The text, traditionally written in Hebrew and Aramaic, included instructions in Yiddish and Ladino, the everyday languages for Jews in Europe. The Ladino translations were specifically geared toward Sephardi Jews who arrived in the Netherlands after being expelled from Spain and Portugal, as well as Portuguese “Conversos” returning to Judaism after their ancestors had been forced to convert to Catholicism.

The Amsterdam Haggadah proved to be incredibly influential on later versions, with its illustrations copied into the modern era.

A Haggadah for everyone

By the 20th century, Haggadahs had been adapted and translated to meet the needs of diverse Jewish communities around the world, including various religious denominations– Reform, Conservative, Orthodox – or political, social and labor groups, such as Zionists or socialists. The Haggadah’s key theme of freedom from oppression was tailored to address contemporary situations and viewpoints.

Modern Haggadah illustrations also reflected developments in the art world. In 1920s Berlin, a Jewish art teacher, Otto Geismar, reinterpreted the story of the Exodus using plain, black-and-white, modernist “stick figures” – another Haggadah in our collection.

Despite their minimal lines, the figures are all expressive. Geismar even injected elements of humor: A child is shown asleep at the table, and in another scene a family of stick figures is engaged in animated conversation and debate. In his depictions of ancient Israelite slaves, stick figures appear especially burdened with heavy loads on their backs. He also divided the Hebrew text into more easily readable sections using eye-catching, black-and-white decorative borders.

The striking simplicity of the design, aimed primarily at children, gained great popularity, and his work was reprinted in multiple German and Dutch editions.

Wine – and coffee

There was growing demand for different printed versions, as Jews around the world adapted the traditional Haggadah. Meanwhile, some suppliers sensed an opportunity to adapt it for their own needs. Thus rose a phenomenon known as the commercial Haggadah: the product of astute companies realizing the power of advertising their wares in a book dedicated to the art of “telling.”

The most famous of these is the Maxwell House Haggadah from 1932, which was distributed freely with every can of coffee purchased.

In 1938, the Schapiro House of Kosher Wines caught on. The company, whose flagship store was on New York’s Lower East Side, produced a Haggadah with an English translation and illustrations borrowed from the Amsterdam Haggadah. Owner Sam Schapiro savvily linked his products to the Seder, during which participants drink four small cups of sacramental wine. Wine, seen at this point as a luxury item, also symbolized freedom.

Just in case there were any doubts about advertising alcohol a mere five years after Prohibition, when sacramental wine was difficult to access, Schapiro’s Haggadah made the case for wine’s “health values.” Across two pages at the back of the book, the editor describes in English and Yiddish the supposed efficacy of wine against a host of maladies, including typhoid fever, depression and even obesity.

Schapiro’s Haggadah fulfilled the commandment to relate the story of the Exodus for a new generation – but the opening pages also provide a tribute in Yiddish to Sam Schapiro’s 40-year-old company. Here Schapiro’s is praised for being the place where religious men and intellectuals alike could get together over a good glass of wine.

Commercial Haggadahs were not expected to become venerable family heirlooms. Rather, they provided a handy, affordable way for Jewish families of lesser means to participate in the annual ritual of coming forth out of bondage – another expression of freedom.

Rebecca J.W. Jefferson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

In recent years, churches in many Christian denominations have split over LGBTQ+ issues.

In the past six months, hundreds of congregations voted to leave the United Methodist Church over same-sex marriage and whether LGBTQ+ people should be clergy.

The Church of England, the original and largest member of the Anglican Communion – the third-largest Christian denomination worldwide– held a General Synod in London in February 2024 that debated such issues. Bishops, priests and laypeople from every diocese of the Church of England voted down several amendments that opposed liturgical same-sex blessings, and they essentially agreed to disagree on the issues. Participants ended discussions early, concluding it was “too soon” to definitely resolve these issues.

With over 80 million believers in 160 countries, the Anglican Communion has been grappling with LGBTQ+ issues since the 1970s.

Congregations and church leadership disagree on whether homosexuality is contrary to Christian scripture; whether clergy can perform same-sex marriages; and whether openly and active LGBTQ+ people should be ordained to the priesthood and as bishops.

As a scholar specializing in history of the Christianity and gender studies, I can attest that the Anglican Communion’s lengthy, unresolved dialogue is not so unusual. It is a long-standing process for navigating disputes called the “via media,” or middle way, which has thus far succeeded in holding together people with contradictory beliefs.

Controversies in the Anglican Communion

For decades, diverging points of view over homosexuality and rumors of schism have both confused and polarized believers in the global Anglican Communion. Conservative bishops, many serving in Africa, Asia and Latin America, have repeatedly emphasized that engaging in same-sex relations is contrary to scripture.

This is part of a larger struggle within the Anglican Communion to renegotiate imbalances of power and authority left over from the colonial era of the British Empire. British Commonwealth and North American churches – such as the Church of England and the U.S.-based Episcopal Church – historically dominated discussions of Biblical interpretation, liturgy and church policy.

In the 21st century, these churches still have most of the money in the Anglican Communion, but congregational numbers are dwindling. At the same time, congregations in Africa, Asia and Latin America are growing. The Church of Nigeria is the second-largest and fastest-growing church in the Anglican Communion. Leaders of these churches expect a greater voice in the communion.

A majority of church leaders in Africa, Asia and Latin America believe that homosexual priests should not be consecrated as bishops and that same-sex marriages should not be celebrated. As Archbishop of Uganda Livingstone Mpalanyi-Nkoyoyo summed up in 1998 (a position reiterated by conservative leaders for over 25 years): “We are all quite clear that practicing homosexuality is wrong. That is the orthodox Anglican position.” Views like these carry great weight in the Anglican Communion, even today.

Furthermore, some bishops and believers in Europe, North America and Australia agree and have aligned themselves with conservatives in Africa, Asia and Latin America. But they remain within the Anglican Communion.

Meanwhile, some progressive bishops have argued that when properly interpreted, scripture allows for full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in church leadership and rituals.

The Episcopal Church in the U.S. has ordained openly gay bishops – most controversially Gene Robinson, former Bishop of New Hampshire, in 2003. In 2015, the Episcopal Church and some Canadian dioceses approved the celebration of same-sex marriages.

In 2016, the primates – the most senior leaders of the Anglican Communion – voted to suspend the Episcopal Church from decision-making on Anglican governance and policy for three years.

The via media

Despite such heated conflicts, the Anglican Communion holds together through the via media. Via media was first mentioned by English reformers who broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century. King Henry VIII wanted his marriage to his queen, Catherine of Aragon, annulled, but Pope Clement VII, the queen’s nephew, refused.

Subsequently, England created its own national church. It is this Church of England that eventually spread globally with the British Empire to become the Anglican Communion.

Early church leaders were influenced by Aristotle’s encouragement of a Golden Mean, a middle path, between vice and virtue, avoiding extremes when making decisions about religious change. Leading reformers such as Thomas Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of three English monarchs, saw themselves walking a via media between the ideas of Roman Catholicism and Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin.

For example, when considering the role of good works, reformers sought a middle path between what they saw as Catholicism’s overreliance on good works as the path to salvation and Protestant reformers’ insistence that good works in and of themselves did not produce salvation. They navigated a path between the two dominant faith traditions in the turbulent years of the Reformation in Europe.

In the 19th century, via media became a way of thinking about internal, rather than external, challenges, such as resolving debates over how to interpret scripture. A controversy over theological issues and the proper way to understand the meanings within scripture was threatening global Anglican unity midcentury, much as is occurring over homosexuality today. Most notably, John Colenso, bishop of Natal in South Africa, sparked dispute when he questioned theological issues such as whether receiving Holy Communion was necessary in order to be saved.

The first conference for such discussions was convened in 1867 at Lambeth Palace in London. There was to be no rule-making. Bishops were to discuss differences, share insights and reinforce community across divisions but without the authority to impose their views on any others. The Lambeth Conferences have been convened approximately every 10 years since, most recently in 2022.

The via media’s effectiveness was evident in 1998 when the conference passed Resolution I.10, which defined homosexuality as contrary to scripture but avoided a schism. The conference used shared ritual to reinforce bishops’ communal bonds and spiritual mission, such as joining in the intimate act of ritually washing one another’s feet. Bishops prioritized unity and agreed that their resolution would not be the end of the discussion. They called for the use of new knowledge to revisit and possibly reinterpret the church’s traditional understandings of scripture.

Holding together

It is this understanding of via media, I argue, that is holding the Anglican Communion together thus far. It does not refer to fence-sitting or finding a palatable middle ground or compromise position. Instead, it seeks to include people with deeply held but contrary beliefs within the same church through common worship and life.

The via media is not easy or comfortable, but members of the Anglican Communion appear committed to remaining at the table so far. The Church of England, for example, made plans for negotiations between people holding differing viewpoints before the Synod meets again in July 2024.

As the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has noted: “Certainly I want reconciliation, but reconciliation doesn’t always mean agreement – in fact, it very seldom does. It means finding ways to disagree well.”

Lisa McClain is affiliated with her local Episcopal Church and the Diocese of Idaho. She is a professor of Gender Studies and a member of the international think tank The Inclusion Crowd as a gender expert.

The Jewish holiday cycle is, to a large extent, an exploration and commemoration of the experience of exile. The fall festival of Sukkot, for example, is celebrated in small booths, temporary shelters that recall the Israelites’ experience sheltering in tents while wandering in the desert for 40 years after fleeing slavery in Egypt. The story of Purim, a springtime festival, takes place when ancient Jews lived in exile in the Persian Empire – and illustrates the precariousness of life as a minority.

And then there’s Passover, which begins on April 22, 2024. It marks the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt – the first step toward redemption. The theme of freedom dominates the holiday.

Passover is the only holiday that marks the transition from exile to wandering, and not to homecoming, highlighting the complexity of exile – the focus of my recently published book, “Exile and the Jews,” co-edited with Marc Saperstein.

As a literary scholar, I look to novels and memoirs for examples that illustrate exile and its aftermath from different perspectives. Here I focus on those from the Jewish communities of Egypt and Iraq, sites of the two major exiles in Jewish history.

Into the unknown

In her 1983 novella “The Miracle Hater,” the late Israeli novelist Shulamit Hareven depicts the Hebrews in their passage from Egypt and their first taste of freedom. Writing a modern “midrash” – a rabbinic genre that elaborates on a biblical text – she reimagines the story of Exodus.

Whereas the biblical description centers on heroic leaders like Moses and Joshua, Hareven concentrates on the unnamed masses: the Jewish slaves who have just crossed the Red Sea, now faced with life in the desert and becoming a new community.

Hareven’s narrative elaborates on the uprooting wrought by the Exodus, exploring the unexpected ambivalence with which the Hebrews face their newfound freedom. They have fled oppression, but that means leaving everything familiar to wander, seemingly endlessly, in the great unknown of the desert.

Israeli writer Orly Castel-Bloom weaves family lore, history and some alternative history into “An Egyptian Novel,” published in 2015. She both invents and lays claim to the one family who did not join the exodus in ancient times but remained in Egypt throughout the ages. Although they are merely a passing mention, their existence gives the reader pause to wonder if indeed any of the Hebrews stayed behind.

Many Jews did stay behind after the next major exile in Jewish history, which began when Babylonia besieged Jerusalem and deported residents of the conquered city in 586 B.C.E. When Persian king Cyrus the Great issued an edict almost 50 years later inviting the Jews to return to Jerusalem and the land of Judah, only a minority did so. Those who remained in Babylon became the root of the diaspora and established the oldest continuous Jewish community in the world.

‘Out of Egypt’

More recently, Jews have lived in both of these sites of ancient exiles: modern-day Egypt and Iraq. While those in Iraq could claim a history of hundreds of years, those in Egypt were more likely to have moved there within the last few generations.

In his 1995 memoir “Out of Egypt,” novelist, essayist and professor André Aciman – best known for the book-turned-film “Call Me By My Name” – writes movingly and memorably about living on the eve of exile.

By the early 1960s, Jews found themselves less welcome in Egypt. Aciman details the harassment his family endured – anonymous phone calls, surveillance, seizure of the family business by the government – before they were given orders to leave.

“It never occurred to us that a seder in Egypt was a contradiction in terms,” he wrote in The New York Times, describing the Passover meal his family held the night before their departure. The Egypt of the Exodus story seemed far from the Egypt of Aciman’s childhood, the one he loved.

Looking back at that last meal, the novelist wondered just what was being celebrated, and which departure of the Jews the Seder was commemorating. “The fault lines of exile and diaspora always run deep, and we are always from elsewhere, and from elsewhere before that,” he noted.

In “Out of Egypt,” the irony of the family preparing to leave on Passover is not lost on the author, the reader or, one suspects, the characters themselves. After a rather dismal attempt at a Seder, the narrator wandered through the streets of Alexandria, mourning a place that had become home. Until this moment, the idea of Egypt as a place of exile had not occurred to him; the idea of Israel being a place of return foreign.

On that last evening, the narrator walked the promenade along the waterfront and was offered “fiteer,” sold on street corners in honor of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan. It is not kosher for Passover, when leavened grains are forbidden, but the boy enjoyed the fried dough, the taste of which he recalled with pleasure many years later.

The blend of cultures, foreign and local, shows the family to be not unlike other cosmopolitan-mongrel Jews living in Egypt at the time. The city was “so inseparable from who I was at that very instant,” the narrator recalls. “And suddenly I knew … that I would always remember this night.”

It is a poignant account of the very personal nature of exile. And yet it is an experience potentially shared by everyone in the Jewish community. Exile is a place unknown, over the edge of the precipice.

Into Iraq

The Passover holiday is also at the center of British journalist Tim Judah’s visit to Iraq to cover the 2003 American invasion. He was the first of his family in many years to “return” to Baghdad. His father’s family had left Iraq in the 19th century for India in the wake of persecutions during Dawud Pasha’s reign.

Noting that his visit would coincide with the holiday, Judah set out to meet as many of the estimated three dozen Jews who still lived in Iraq. The journalist found faint traces of the once-thriving community: palimpsests of stars of David in brickwork, a Hebrew inscription in Ezekiel’s tomb. At the time of Iraq’s independence in 1932, Jews comprised a plurality in the capital; business came to a standstill on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath.

The rise of Arab nationalism, the establishment of the state of Israel and shifting geopolitics led to the mass emigration of the Jewish community in the early 1950s. By 2003, the few Jews Judah found lived in trepidation and ramshackle homes.

“I tried to picture my forebears, in the fields or perhaps in the shops or the market, but I couldn’t,” Judah wrote in Granta magazine. “A cold grey dust filled the air. Wrecked cars and burnt-out tanks littered the road back to Baghdad. … So my ancestors lived here for 2,500 years? So what? My pilgrimage was over. I will never need to do it again.”

Judah’s pilgrimage leads not to a renewed sense of belonging but a break. His family’s uprooting is complete.

And so it goes, the cycle of exile and remembrance, uprooting and rerooting. With the Passover holiday, those free can celebrate their freedom, and those who are rooted, their rootedness. Yet at the same time, families around the Seder table can remember those who are not yet free, and those still suffering from being uprooted.

Nancy E. Berg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

A Vatican declaration, the “Infinite Dignity,” has brought renewed attention to how religions define and interpret gender and gender roles.

Approved by the pope on March 25, 2024, the Vatican declaration asserts the Vatican’s opposition to gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy. While noting that people should not be “imprisoned,” “tortured” or “killed” because of their sexual orientation, it says that “gender theory” and any sex-change intervention reject God’s plan for human life.

The Catholic Church has long emphasized traditional binary views of gender. But in many places, both present and past, individuals have been able to push back against gender norms. Even in the ancient Roman Empire, individuals could transgress traditional conceptions of gender roles in various ways. While Roman notions of femininity and masculinity were strict as regards clothing, for instance, there is evidence to suggest that individuals could and did breach these norms, although they were likely to be met with ridicule or scorn.

As a scholar of Greek and Latin literature, I have studied the “Galli,” male followers of the goddess Cybele. Their appearance and behaviors, often considered feminine, were commented on extensively by Roman authors: They were said to curl their hair, smooth their legs with pumice stones and wear fine clothing. They also, but not always, surgically removed their testicles.

Cybele: Mother of the gods

In the philosophical treatise “Hymn to the Mother of the Gods,” Julian the Philosopher, the last pagan emperor of the Roman empire, writes about the history of the cult of Cybele. In this treatise, he describes the cult’s main figures and how some of its rites were performed.

Often referred to as the Mother of the Gods, Cybele was first worshiped in Anatolia. Her most famous cult site was located at Pessinous, the modern Turkish village of Ballıhisar, about 95 miles southwest of Ankara, where Julian stopped to pay a visit on his journey to Antioch in 362 C.E.

Cybele was known in Greece by around 500 B.C.E. and introduced to Rome sometime between 205 and 204 B.C.E. In Rome, where she came to be recognized as the mother of the state, her worship was incorporated into the official roster of Roman cults, and her temple was built on the Palatine, the political center of Rome.

Cybele’s cult gave rise to a group of male followers, or attendants, known as Galli. Among the surviving material evidence related to their existence are sculptures, as well as a Roman burial of an individual Gallus discovered in Northern England.

Attis: Cybele’s human companion

A statue from Ostia, Rome’s port city, depicts a reclining Attis, Cybele’s youthful male human companion.

What is highly unusual about this statue, which is at the Vatican museum, is how the sculptor has draped the clothing to draw attention to Attis’ groin and stomach: No discernible genitalia are visible. Attis, at first sight, appears to be a woman.

In their tellings of Cybele’s myth, Greek and Roman authors give differing versions for Attis’ self-castration. The Roman poet Catullus describes how Cybele puts Attis into a state of frenzy, during which he castrates himself. Immediately afterward, Attis is referred to by female adjectives as she calls to her companions, the Gallae, using the female form instead of the masculine Galli. Catullus’ poem highlights the ambiguity in Attis’ gender and that of Cybele’s attendants.

Material evidence for the Galli

A relief sculpture from Lanuvium, now at the Musei Capitolini in Rome and dated to the second century C.E, is one of the few surviving representations of a Gallus.

This individual is surrounded by objects commonly associated with Cybele’s cult, including musical instruments, a box for cult objects and a whip. The sculpted figure is adorned with an elaborate headdress or crown, a torque necklace and a small breastplate, as well as ornate clothing.

Other than signaling the person’s connection to Cybele’s cult, the objects and adornments also suggest that the person’s gender identity is somewhat ambiguous, since Roman men shunned flamboyance and ornaments.

At Cataractonium, a Roman fort in Northern England, a skeleton was uncovered in the necropolis of Bainesse during excavations in 1981-82. Based on the accompanying burial goods, which included a torque anklet, bracelets and a necklace made of a type of gemstone that has been dated to around the third century C.E., archaeologists thought that these were the remains of a woman.

An examination of the bones, however, revealed that the remains were those of a young man – likely in his early twenties. Since Roman men typically did not wear the kind of jewelry found in the grave, archaeologists concluded that the individual may have been a Gallus.

Respect for Galli

Galli were attached to temples, where they formed a community. During processions in Cybele’s honor, they would follow behind the cult image and priests, chanting alongside musical instruments they played.

In Rome, they had permission to seek alms from the populace; they would also offer prophetic readings or ecstatic dances in return for payment. It is possible that they enhanced their looks in order to get more money.

Some scholars have argued that their feminine appearance was a way to differentiate themselves from the general public; likewise, that their voluntary castration signaled their renunciation of the world and devotion to Cybele, in imitation of Attis, her companion.

However, it does not seem out of the ordinary to think that some Galli were drawn to Cybele’s cult because it offered them a way to escape the strict binary gender system of the Romans. Galli, unlike other men in Rome or its empire, were able to openly present themselves or live as women, regardless of their assigned sex or how they identified.

Catullus’ poem and comments by other authors indicate that they perceived the gender of the Galli as differing from Roman concepts of masculinity. However, the Galli were also, reluctantly, respected for the role they played in Cybele’s cult. It is thus hard to know who exactly joined their communities and how they saw themselves, and whether the sources describe them accurately.

It is tempting to see the Galli as nonbinary or transgender individuals, even though the Romans did not know or use concepts such as nonbinary or transgender. Still, it is not inconceivable that a number of individuals found in the Galli both a community and an identity that allowed them to express themselves in a way that traditional Roman manhood did not permit.

The Vatican declaration asserts that the female and male binary is fixed and suggests that gender-affirming care “risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”

Nonetheless, the existence of trans people today, as well as people who defied gender binaries in the past – including the Galli of ancient Rome – shows that it is and was possible to live outside prevailing gender norms. In my view, that makes it clear that it is unjust to impose moral teachings or judgments on how people experience their bodies or themselves.

Tina Chronopoulos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen penned a 5,000-word manifesto in 2023 that gave a full-throated call for unrestricted technological progress to boost markets, broaden energy production, improve education and strengthen liberal democracy.

The billionaire, who made his fortune by co-founding Netscape– a 1990s-era company that made a pioneering web browser – espouses a concept known as “techno-optimism.” In summing it up, Andreessen writes, “We believe that there is no material problem – whether created by nature or by technology – that cannot be solved with more technology.”

The term techno-optimism isn’t new; it began to appear after World War II. Nor is it in a state of decline, as Andreessen and other techno-optimists such as Elon Musk would have you believe. And yet Andreessen’s essay made a big splash.

As scholars who study technology and society, we have observed that techno-optimism easily attaches itself to the public’s desire for a better future. The questions of how that future will be built, what that future will look like and who will benefit from those changes are harder to answer.

Why techno-optimism matters

Techno-optimism is a blunt tool. It suggests that technological progress can solve every problem known to humans – a belief also known as techno-solutionism.

Its adherents object to commonsense guardrails or precautions, such as cities limiting the number of new Uber drivers to ease traffic congestion or protect cab drivers’ livelihoods. They dismiss such regulations or restrictions as the concerns of Luddites– people who resist disruptive innovations.

In our view, some champions of techno-optimism, such as Bill Gates, rely on the cover of philanthropy to promote their techno-optimist causes. Others have argued that their philanthropic initiatives are essentially a public relations effort to burnish their reputations as they continue to control how technology is being used to address the world’s problems.

The stakes of embracing techno-optimism are high – and not just in terms of the role that technology plays in society. There are also political, environmental and economic ramifications for holding these views. As an ideological position, it puts the interests of certain people – often those already wielding immense power and resources – over those of everyone else. Its cheerleaders can be willfully blind to the fact that most of society’s problems, like technology, are made by humans.

Many scholars are keenly aware of the techno-optimism of social media that pervaded the 2010s. Back then, these technologies were breathlessly covered in the media – and promoted by investors and inventors – as an opportunity to connect the disconnected and bring information to anyone who might need it.

Yet, while offering superficial solutions to loneliness and other social problems, social media has failed to address their root structural causes. Those may include the erosion of public spaces, the decline of journalism and enduring digital divides.

Tech alone can’t fix everything

Both of us have extensively researched economic development initiatives that seek to promote high-tech entrepreneurship in low-income communities in Ghana and the United States. State-run programs and public-private partnerships have sought to narrow digital divides and increase access to economic opportunity.

Many of these programs embrace a techno-optimistic mindset by investing in shiny, tech-heavy fixes without addressing the inequality that led to digital divides in the first place. Techno-optimism, in other words, pervades governments and nongovernmental organizations, just as it has influenced the thinking of billionaires like Andreessen.

Solving intractable problems such as persistent poverty requires a combination of solutions that sometimes, yes, includes technology. But they’re complex. To us, insisting that there’s a technological fix for every problem in the world seems not just optimistic, but also rather convenient if you happen to be among the richest people on Earth and in a position to profit from the technology industry.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has provided funding for The Conversation U.S. and provides funding for The Conversation internationally.

Seyram Avle receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Jean Hardy receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.