My immigrant parents'my father especially'are ardent Christians. As such, my childhood seemed to differ dramatically from the glimpses of American life I witnessed at school or on television. My parents often spoke of their regimented, cloistered upbringings in Nigeria, and their belief that Americans are too lax. They devised a series of schemes to keep us on the straight and narrow: At home, we listened to an unending stream of gospel music and watched Christian programming on the Trinity Broadcasting Network. The centerpiece of their strategy, however, was daily visits to our small Nigerian church, in North Texas. I quickly discerned a gap between the fist-pumping, patriotic Christianity that I saw on TV and the earnest, yearning faith that I experienced in church. On TV, it seemed that Christianity was not only a means of achieving spiritual salvation but also a tool for convincing the world of America's preeminence. Africa was mentioned frequently on TBN, but almost exclusively as a destination for white American missionaries. On-screen, they would appear dour and sweaty as they distributed food, clothes, and Bibles to hordes of seemingly bewildered yet appreciative Black people. The ministers spoke of how God's love'and, of course, the support of the audience'made such donations possible, but the subtext was much louder: God had blessed America, and now America was blessing everyone else....

'Faith' is often defined as belief in a supernatural God that transcends reason ' and belief that science can only go so far to explain the fundamental mysteries of life. Reason, meanwhile, means inquiry that draws on logic and deductive reasoning. Maimonides' full name was Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, and he is often referred to by the abbreviation 'Rambam.' His writings spurred centuries of conflict and were even banned in some Jewish communities. Yet he also penned one of the most famous guides to Jewish law and still stands as one of the most influential rabbis to have ever lived. It is surprising for many students to learn that Maimonides, who lived in present-day Spain, Morocco and Egypt, embraced reason as the only way to make sense of faith. In this rabbi's view, the idea of a battle between faith and reason sets boundaries where none need exist. Treating faith and reason as if they are at odds is nothing new. Some philosophers have described them as two different cities, as when University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss wrote of 'Jerusalem and Athens.'...

Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation, objected, saying that 'the moon holds a sacred place' in Navajo and other tribal traditions and should not be defiled in this way. The inside of the lander was to be a kind of 'space burial' for remains of some 70 people. Each of the families had paid over US$12,000 for a permanent memorial on the Moon. As professors of religious studies who have taught courses on death rites, we know that death rituals in the world's religions have been shaped by millennia of tradition and practice. While these ashes didn't make it to the Moon because of a propellant leak, their presence on the lander raised some important religious issues: Beliefs about the polluting nature of the corpse, the acceptability of cremation and the sacredness of the Moon vary across traditions. In ancient Judaism, certain activities were believed to be polluting, rendering a person unfit to participate in prayers and animal sacrifices offered exclusively at the Temple in Jerusalem. There were many ways in which one could become ritually unclean, and each level of pollution was cleansed by an appropriate purification rite. Direct contact with a human corpse was believed to cause the most intense form of pollution; even touching a person or object that had been in contact with a corpse would cause a lesser level of defilement....

It's a familiar story: As history books tell it, the Europeans brought their religion to the New World, and none were as zealous in their attempts to convert Indigenous people as the Spaniards. Indeed, in the Spanish view, the quest to spread Catholicism to every corner of the world was a central pillar of colonization. In truth, Spanish control in the Americas was far from absolute. Despite the sweeping proclamations of missionaries who claimed to convert thousands of souls every day to Christianity, spiritual life in the colonies would have made the pope do a double take. Spain's colonies were a vast patchwork of borderlands built over the smoldering infrastructure of Indigenous civilizations such as the Mexica and the Inca. Even at the centers of colonial control, like Mexico City and Lima, Spanish power was decentralized, meaning that virtually no policy, order or law was consistently implemented. The reach of the Spanish crown depended as much on the whims of low-ranking administrators as on the king's own advisers....