In the later nineteenth century, British, Canadian and American Evangelicals set up transatlantic religious networks to fight the Catholic Church and to affirm their Protestant Anglophone identities. Accordingly, Evangelical militants perceived their struggle as being transnational despite the diametrically different State–Church relationship contexts—which went from full separation in the United States to British church establishment, along with the intermediary Canadian situation ( de facto disestablishment). When nineteenth‐century Anglophone States took over from the Churches the responsibility of educating the youth, militant Evangelicals seized the prospect to ensure that public schools would preserve the essence of a broad Protestant spirit. Furthermore, Evangelical activists relentlessly fought against any form of public subsidies for Catholic schools. This article focuses on the issue of education and reconsiders the wars on religion in the schools, bringing into light the similarities and parallels of said quarrels set in different national contexts.

The anthropologists of religion Mary Douglas (d. 2007) and Louis Dumont (d. 1998) developed analytical concepts that can illuminate aspects of the medieval Church which are articulately distilled into a letter of Pope Innocent III (d. 1216). Mary Douglas associated “high grid” (meaning thoroughgoing social classification) with “condensed symbolism.” The combination can occur in both literate and non‐literate cultures. She found the combination in her own fieldwork on the Lele of the Kasai, and Victor Turner's work on the Ndembu of Zambia. It is also strikingly evident, once one looks, in a letter in which Innocent III abandoned genre restraint to write an essay on anointing and hierarchy in the Church as he understood it, which was quite well, since he was not only an observer, but a participant with great power over the system. Dumont, an approximate contemporary of Douglas, provides insights, supplementing those of Douglas, that further enhance understanding of Innocent III's letter and the whole social system which it instantiates. With the help of Mary Douglas, Louis Dumont and Innocent's essay on unction, we can identify a social form which, without being universal, transcends particular regions and periods.

In 1983 on Waitangi Day, nine Pākehā Christian protesters (including Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Baptist ministers) were arrested and charged with disorderly behaviour for interrupting the morning church service at Waitangi. In solidarity with Māori activists and wider protests, they sought to draw attention to the longstanding failure of the New Zealand Government and Pākehā society to uphold the Treaty of Waitangi. These Christians interrupted the service of national celebration by reading from the Old Testament prophets and offering prayers of repentance. Drawing on archival research and interviews, this article tells the story of this protest action and its impact.

This article examines the media coverage of the “escaped nun,” Edith O'Gorman, one of the few “escaped nuns” who had actually been a member of a religious community. She used her experiences in the convent to drive her career as a lecturer in the United States and abroad. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis, this article examines US newspaper coverage of O'Gorman from the year of her escape in 1868 to a year after her death in 1929. By analyzing articles, advertisements and reviews of the escaped nun, this study traces a shift in how the American newspapers portrayed the former nun, initially largely depicting her in sensationalist and entertainment terms in the 1860s through 1880s to later placing her as part of a determined anti‐Catholic movement in the 1890s through 1910s. Unlike previous histories on anti‐Catholicism in this era, this study traces media coverage of an anti‐Catholic reformer in the general press, rather than only in the nativist press. This study nuances the history of anti‐Catholicism in the years after the American Civil War, particularly how Americans may have viewed the convent and escaped nuns.

The Manchurian Incident of 1931 marked a pivotal moment in the rise of Japanese fascism. During the period from this incident until the Pacific War's defeat, dissent from the state's control was not tolerated, leading to coercive measures in religious communities. The Christian community, rather than devising theological reasoning to resist the state's control, chose to align with the state emphasizing unwavering loyalty to the emperor. This paper aims to focus on Ogawa Takemitsu, who led Christian peace movements through post‐war organizations such as the “Christian Peace Association.” Reflecting on the state of Japanese Christianity during wartime, Ogawa deepened his theological contemplation on the church and state, war and peace, and sought to shape a new form of post‐war Japanese Christianity. Ogawa's peace movement, which distanced itself from the logic of the state that causes war and strived to build a peaceful community through transnational citizen solidarity, reminds us of the issues of the Japanese Constitution and pacifism that have been central themes in post‐war Japanese politics. It can also serve to re‐emphasize the meaning of a peaceful community to Japanese society, which continues to pursue constitutional revision aimed at becoming a war‐capable state.