In this talk I examine recent sociological research on the relationship between religion and science for the public. This research suggests that while religion may have at one time been concerned with fact claims in the natural world that could be contradicted by science, it largely is no longer. This post-1960s development has coincided with...

How is it that Jesus came to be viewed by the earliest Christians as "sinless," and what did this mean for them? In this presentation I will explore the process by which early Christianity claimed that Jesus was a perfectly sinless human being, setting the stage for his apotheosis as God. As we will see,...

Novelists sometimes experience their characters as coming to life and guiding their writing process, but the characters remain imaginary. Founders of new religious and spiritual movements paths often go beyond this to become convinced that real divine Presences are actively guiding the emergence of their new spiritual paths. Historical sources indicate that Joseph Smith, Carl...