Browse Creeds
50 results
Ahmadiyya
- Present
A South Asian messianic reform movement within the broad Islamic world, Ahmadiyya combines nineteenthâcentury prophetic claims with organized missionary activity and a centralized caliphal institution, while its selfâunderstanding has generated intense controversy and persecution in several countries.
Akan Religion
- Present
A lived West African cosmology centered on Nyame, Asase Yaa and a network of local spirits and ancestors, Akan religion shapes personal identity, political symbols and communal rites across southern Ghana and eastern CĂŽte d'Ivoire.
Alawism
- Present
A secretive, syncretic community rooted in medieval ShiÊżi currents and concentrated in Syria's coastal mountains, Alawism is a living, esoteric branch of Islam whose doctrines and social history have produced both internal diversity and intense external attention.
Alevism
- Present
Anatolian, syncretic, and politically distinct within Turkey: Alevism is a living, plural religious-cultural path that blends ShiÊżite devotion, Sufi practice, Turkic and Anatolian folk forms, and a strong lineage-based communal structure centered in Anatolia and the Turkish diaspora.
Anabaptism
- Present
Anabaptism is a family of Christian movements arising in the sixteenth-century Radical Reformation that emphasized voluntary adult baptism, a discipled church separated from worldly powers, and lives of peace and mutual aid.
Anglicanism
- Present
Anglicanism formed in the crucible of Tudor politics and Reformation theology, defining itself as a mediated path between inherited Catholic forms and Protestant reforms.
Anthroposophy
- Present
A twentiethâcentury European
Armenian Apostolic Church
- Present
One of the oldest Christian communions and the church traditionally associated with the first state to adopt Christianity, the Armenian Apostolic Church combines a distinct liturgical patrimony, an ancient scriptural culture, and a long history of negotiation between ecclesiastical identity and national life.
Arya Samaj
- Present
A lateâ19thâcentury Vedic reform movement that sought to recover what its founders presented as the authority of the Vedas, Arya Samaj reconfigured Hindu practice and social reform in colonial India and continues as a living, plural movement of education, ritual, and social activism.
Assyrian Church of the East
- Present
An East Syriac Christian communion with roots in Sasanian Mesopotamia, the Assyrian Church of the East is the living heir to a church that traveled the Silk Road to Tang China and developed a distinctive theological and liturgical idiom in Syriac.
Australian Aboriginal Traditions
- Present
A living, plural set of Indigenous religious traditions in which the Dreamingâancestral law, story and songâstructures relations to country, kin, and the moral order.
BahĂĄ'Ă Faith
- Present
A nineteenthâcentury Persian movement that presents a theology of progressive revelation and an administrative order intended to foster global unity and social transformation.
Baptist Tradition
- Present
A family of Protestant Christians distinguished by believer's baptism by immersion and the autonomy of the local congregation, Baptists form a diverse global movement shaped by debates over liberty, mission, and scripture.
Brahmo Samaj
- Present
A Bengali movement that reworked Hindu practice into an English-language, monotheistic reform project, the Brahmo Samaj shaped nineteenth-century Indian public religion and continues as a living, diverse body of congregations and institutions.
Bwiti
- Present
Bwiti is a living spiritual tradition of Gabon and neighbouring regions centered on communion with ancestors and the ritual use of the iboga plant, practiced through music, initiation, and healing ceremonies that bind individual transformation to social memory.
Bön
- Present
An indigenous Tibetan religious tradition that traces its origins to the high plateaus and the kingdom of Zhangâzhung, Bön survives today as a living faith and corpus of ritual, philosophy, and monastic institutions practiced alongside Tibetan Buddhism.
Candomblé
- Present
CandomblĂ© is an Afro-Brazilian religious tradition that registers the presence of West and Central African deities â the orixĂĄs, voduns, and nkisis â in Brazil's social and political life, a religion shaped as much by ritual possession and song as by the struggle to survive under slavery, repression, and modern secularizing pressures.
Caodaism
- Present
A Vietnamese syncretic religion that assembles Buddhist, Confucian, Taoist, Christian and modern Western figures into a single cosmologyâmost strikingly venerating Victor Hugo among its saints.
Cheondoism
- Present
Cheondoism (Cheondogyo), known as the 'Heavenly Way,' is a modern Korean religious movement that emerged from the mid-nineteenthâcentury Donghak reform movement and continues as a living, socially engaged faith centered on the notion that Heaven (Hananim) is immanent in human life.
Chinese Folk Religion (Shenism)
- Present
A diffuse, syncretic popular faith centered on gods (shen), ancestors, and local temples that has been woven into Chinese social life for millennia.
Christian Science
- Present
A American-born movement that reinterprets Christianity around the conviction that spiritual understanding â as articulated by Mary Baker Eddy â is the means to heal and to restore human wellâbeing.
Confucianism
- Present
A living ethical-religious tradition centered on ritual, ancestor reverence, and moral cultivation that has shaped social life across East Asia for two and a half millennia.
Conservative (Masorti) Judaism
- Present
A movement of Jewish law and communal life that seeks to hold the weight of tradition while engaging the methods of modern historical inquiryâConservative (Masorti) Judaism presents continuity and change as an ongoing conversation.
Coptic Orthodoxy
- Present
Egyptâs ancient church: a living Christian communion rooted in the city of Alexandria and the desert monasteries that gave monasticism to the Christian world.
Druze
- Present
A small, tightly knit Levantine ethnoreligion that emerged in the Fatimid milieu of the eleventh century, the Druze combine an esoteric theology, a principle of reincarnation, and communal secrecy that shapes their social life and public boundaries.
Eastern Orthodoxy
- Present
A living Christian communion shaped by the Byzantine liturgical imagination and a conciliar sense of authority, Eastern Orthodoxy preserves a ritual, theological, and monastic world in which the Great Schism of 1054 stands as a defining historical rupture and interpretive hinge.
Eckankar
- Present
A twentieth-century American new religious movement that locates divine reality in an experienced âLight and Sound,â Eckankar centers practices of soul travel and inner listening as the route to spiritual self-realization.
Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo
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A Christianity shaped by an ancient African imperial milieu, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo blends distinctive liturgy, an expanded biblical canon, and a living claim to the Ark of the Covenant within a continuously practiced communal world.
Falun Gong (Falun Dafa)
- Present
A qigong-rooted spiritual movement that rose in 1990s China and became both a transnational devotional practice and a focal point of confrontation with the Chinese state.
Haitian Vodou
- Present
A living system of spirit-centered practice and social memory in which lwa (spirits), collective ritual, and histories of resistance meet â a faith fused with revolution and ongoing social life.
Hasidic Judaism
- Present
A popular-mystical renewal within Judaism that emerged in eighteenthâcentury Eastern Europe around the figure of the Baal Shem Tov and now survives through dynastic rebbes, distinctive devotional practices, and diverse communal institutions across Israel, North America, and beyond.
Heathenry (ĂsatrĂș)
- Present
A contemporary reconstruction of pre-Christian North Germanic religious practice, Heathenry (often called ĂsatrĂș) is a plural, contested movement that seeks to enact ancestral gods, rites, and ethics in the modern world while negotiating scholarship, local custom, and contemporary politics.
HĂČa HáșŁo
- Present
A rural reform movement of Vietnamese Buddhism that arose in the Mekong Delta in 1939, HĂČa HáșŁo emphasizes simple lay devotion, moral renewal, and a vernacular corpus of teachings attributed to its founder.
ISKCON (Hare Krishna)
- Present
A modern global movement that transplanted and popularized Gaudiya Vaishnava devotion from Bengal into a worldwide institutional form, known for public chanting, temple worship, and large-scale publishing of devotional texts.
Ibadi Islam
- Present
An early, distinct school of Islam centered historically in Oman and parts of North Africa, Ibadi Islam preserves a community-centered model of religious authority and law that traces its roots to the formative century of Islam.
Inuit Spirituality
- Present
A living northern cosmology in which angakkuq (shamans), the sea-mother Sedna, and close observation of ice and animals bind human communities to a sentient Arctic world.
Ismaili Shia
- Present
A living branch of Shia Islam centered on a hereditary imamate and a long-standing emphasis on esoteric interpretation, expressed today through community institutions, devotional traditions, and global social engagement.
Jainism â Digambara
- Present
A tradition of radical renunciation and doctrinal rigor within Jainism, Digambara articulates a 'skyâclad' path in which nonâpossession and ascetic solitude are presented as the surest route to the soul's liberation.
Jainism â ĆvetÄmbara
- Present
The ĆvetÄmbara community of Jainism â the âwhite-cladâ path â articulates an ethic of radical nonâviolence, disciplined renunciation, and textual custodianship that has shaped religious life in western India for two millennia.
Jehovah's Witnesses
- Present
An identifiable Christian restorationist movement defined by organized, doorâtoâdoor public witnessing and a distinctive, nonâtrinitarian reading of scripture that centers on an imminent divine Kingdom and expectations about the end of the present world order.
Karaite Judaism
- Present
A scripturalist stream within Judaism that grounds law and life directly in the Hebrew Bible and the judgment of individual and communal interpreters rather than in the rabbinic Oral Torah.
Lakota Spirituality
- Present
Centered on the Sun Dance, the sacred pipe, and quests for vision, Lakota spirituality is a living, oral religion of relations and reciprocity that has adapted to centuries of upheaval while remaining rooted in place, song, and ceremony.
Lingayatism (Veerashaivism)
- Present
A 12thâcentury South Indian reform movement centered on Basavaâs call for a lived devotion to a personal linga, Lingayatism (Veerashaivism) remains a distinctive, contested strand of Shaiva religiosity that foregrounds work, equality, and vernacular scripture.
Lutheranism
- Present
A tradition born in the disputations of early-sixteenth-century Wittenberg that placed the Ninety-Five Theses at the center of a wider program of reform, Lutheranism remains a liturgical, scripturally grounded branch of Protestant Christianity with a long history of theological reflection, social engagement and institutional diversity.
Mahayana
- Present
Mahayana presents itself as the Great Vehicle: a broad, evolving family of Buddhist teachings that places the bodhisattva ideal and universal compassion at the center of spiritual life while cultivating a rich philosophical and ritual repertoire across Asia and beyond.
Mandaeism
- Present
A small, living Gnostic tradition rooted in late antiquity that preserves a distinctive dualist cosmology and ritual life centered on frequent baptism and a deep reverence for John the Baptist.
Methodism
- Present
A Protestant revival movement that began in 18thâcentury England, Methodism combines impassioned evangelical preaching with an enduring emphasis on personal and social holiness, producing global denominations, hymnody, and reformist institutions rooted in Wesleyan theology.
Modern Druidry
- Present
A Romantic-era revival reimagined for the modern world: Modern Druidry is a contemporary nature-centered religious movement that draws on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarianism, creative literary inheritance, and late twentieth-century Pagan reconstruction to form a living path of ritual, ethics, and communal practice.
Modern Hellenism
- Present
A contemporary revival of Greek polytheistic worship that seeks to reconstruct and reinhabit the rites, temples, and moral vocabulary of ancient Hellenic religion within modern life.
MÄori Religion (RÄtana & RingatĆ«)
- Present
Two MÄori prophetic traditions that blend Old and New Testament forms with MÄori cosmology and political memory, shaping spiritual life, social organization, and MÄori political engagement in Aotearoa New Zealand.