Judaism
This is a day of rest observed on the seventh day of the week, from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.
What is Shabbat (Sabbath)?
This is the Christian doctrine that Jesus was a god who was born, lived, and died as a human being.
What is the Incarnation?
These are the five key Islamic practices; "witnessing" that "there is no God but God, and Muhammad is the messenger of God (Shahada)"; five daily prayers (Salah); almsgiving (Zakat); fasting during the month of Ramadan (Sawm); and pilgrimage (Hajj).
What are the Five Pillars?
This refers to the sacred energy channeled primarily through orishas, it is the power to make things happen.
What is Ashé?
This late night TV host and famous Catholic is a major Lord of the Rings fan.
Who is Stephen Colbert?
This is a holiday commemorating the Exodus story, especially the event when the Israelites marked their doors with the blood of lambs.
What is Passover (Pesach)?
This is a Roman Catholic (and other liturgical denominations) doctrine claiming that the bread and the wine used in the Mass are ritually transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ.
What is transubstantiation?
Translated as "struggle," this is usually understood as an internal struggle to submit to the divine will, but also refers to an external struggle against the enemies of Islam.
What is jihad?
This is the trickster orisha who lurks at crossroads and thresholds, and who facilitates (or frustrates) communication between human beings and orishas. He is often depicted with a hat.
Who is Eshu?
In an unintionally funny exchange just after the birth of his eldest son, this soccer star said, "I want Brooklyn to be christened, but don't know into what religion yet."
Who is David Beckham?
Generally understood to be the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, this is the written law of the Tanakh and the oral law of the Talmud and literally means "teaching."
What is the Torah?
Adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, this statement of faith establishes Christianity's orthodox teaching on the Trinity.
What is the Nicene Creed?
This is a cubic house of God in Mecca toward which observant Muslims pray everyday and around which pilgrims walk during the hajj; typically covered in an ornate black cloth, it includes a sacred black stone said to have fallen from Heaven.
What is the Kaaba?
This is the second of three legs of trans-Atlantic voyages between Europe, Africa, and the Americas often delivering enslaved people from Africa to the Americas. Infamous for horrendous, inhumane conditions, as many as three out of four enslaved people died on the passage and the experience indelibly shaped Yoruba traditions, even to the point where some orishas have been said to have also died on the journey.
What is the Middle Passage?
This singer, who won her first Album of the Year Grammy this year (2025), has regularly invoked Yoruba imagery in her work, especially that of Oshun—most notably in her 2020 film “Black is King.”
Who is Beyoncé?
This is a collection of authoritative interpretations and commentaries on the Torah. It is primarily made up of the Mishnah, which is the "Oral Torah" comprised of concise explanations of mitzvot, and the Gemara, commentaries on the Mishnah.
What is the Talmud?
This is a slogan of the Protestant Reformation affirming the sole authority of the Bible over church tradition.
What is sola scriptura ("scripture alone")?
This is a collection of Islamic scripture, second in authority only to the Quran, consisting of the exemplary sayings and actions of Muhammad and his companions. They are comprised of a support (chain of transmission or "isnad") and the text and range in authority from strong (most authoritative) to weak (least authoritative).
What are hadith?
This term comes from Haitian folklore, and refers to either a person being controlled through magical means or a dead body reanimated through magical practices. Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often do not involve ritual magic but rather science fictional methods such as fungi, radiation, gases, diseases, plants, bacteria, viruses, etc. In Haitian Vodou, the concept likely reflects anxieties surrounding the history of oppression and slavery experienced by Haitians.
What is a Zonbi or Zombie?
In February of 1968, this band traveled to India to study transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a famous Hindu guru to the stars. This trip thematically shaped their famous film, Yellow Submarine, released later that year, which in turn inspired new religious efforts during the 1968 "Summer of love" including Christian "Submarine Churches" aimed at bringing youth into Christianity with the message "love is all you need."
Who are the Beatles?
This is a false and maliciously perpetuated antisemitic accusation, with examples stretching from the Middle Ages into the twenty-first century, that Jews have murdered non-Jews (such as Christian children) in order to use their blood in rituals. One of the most infamous examples is the mythic thirteenth-century story of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln.
What is blood libel?
This is an abbreviation of the German word Quelle, or “source," which is a symbol and term applied to the hypothetical source document of the “Sayings of Jesus” and other materials found in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark or John. It is the most widely accepted scholarly solution to the "synoptic problem" in academic New Testament studies.
What is Q?
These two concepts are linked. The first refers to divine unity; God is not three, but one, and God is unique, unequaled, and without partners, this is the central teaching in Islam. The second concept refers to idolatry, or ascribing partners to God or bowing down to anyone or anything other than the one, true God.
What are Tawhid and Shirk?
This gathering was a turning point in Haitian history and is widely seen as the spark that lit the Haitian Revolution. This secret Vodou ceremony brought together enslaved Africans to prepare and strategize for overthrowing French rule. Because of the Vodou ceremonies, it has also become the inspiration for malicious claims that the nation of Haiti made a pact with the Devil.
What was the Bois Caiman Ceremony?
Released in 1998 for Nintendo 64, this highly influential and most popular entry in the video game series in which an elf-like hero tries to save the land of Hyrule, an Islamic prayer chant was included in the music of the Fire Temple. The developers at Nintendo were initially unaware of the chant's significance as it was taken from a commercially available sound library, but removed it in later versions out of respect for Muslim players.
What is "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time?"