This guide is designed to help reporters uncover fresh, compelling and nuanced religion stories in advance of the United States Semiquincentennial celebrations in July 2026.

Lisa Dellinger (Chickasaw Nation) is currently the Visiting Assistant Professor of Constructive Theologies and Louisville Postdoctoral Fellow at Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Tinker Visitin Professor at Iliff School of Theology. She writes and teaches at the intersection of Christianity and Indigenous experience, bringing attention to Native identity, colonial history and the complexities […]

Kenji Kuramitsu is an Episcopal priest and writer who reflects on liturgy, identity and everyday spiritual practice, often from an Asian American perspective.

Ari Kelman is a professor at Stanford with a focus on forms of religious knowledge transmission. He holds a specific research interest in American Jewry, with insight into how Jewish communities adapt within broader U.S. society.

Mehdi Khalaji is a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy specializing in Shiʿa politics and Iran’s religious establishment. 

Benedikt Roemer is a Walter Benjamin Fellow at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Oxford. His research interests include religious diversity in the Middle East, religion and nationalism, diaspora studies, the history and contemporary story of the Iranian Christian community and ethnographic research on religion in Arabic, Persian and […]

In this guide, we offer background, resources, relevant stories and expert sources to help you better cover the religion angle on the current conflict and what it might mean in the wake of the latest war in the Middle East.

Teresa Flores is a Peruvian lawyer and director of the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Latin America (OLIRE), based in the Netherlands.

Candace Lukasik is Assistant Professor of Religion and Faculty Affiliate in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures at Mississippi State University. Her research explores religion and the transnational politics of violence, migration, race, and indigeneity in the Middle East, specifically Egypt and Iraq, and its US diasporas.