ReligionForBreakfast
Inducted in 2026
Why it is in the collection
Few subjects resist neutral treatment as badly as religion. Almost everything published about it defends something or attacks something. ReligionForBreakfast does neither: it describes, contextualises, and explains how we know what we know.
It is in the collection for that discipline sustained over years. That one channel can cover pre-Islamic Arabia, whether babies are born atheists, and what remains of faith after it is lost — without the viewer being able to infer the host's personal position — is a notable and deliberate editorial achievement. The rule is not merely stated in the channel description; it is kept episode by episode, even where American religious identity is at stake.
We are also drawn to its explicit teaching vocation. A channel that invites instructors to use its material in the classroom is accepting a higher level of scrutiny than a general audience applies, and that acceptance says something about confidence in the work. It is intellectual hospitality in its purest form: teaching about everyone's beliefs without humiliating anyone for theirs.
About this channel
ReligionForBreakfast is an educational channel devoted to the academic, non-sectarian study of religion. Its stated aim is to improve public religious literacy by exploring human beliefs and rituals through anthropological, sociological and archaeological lenses. The host is Dr Andrew M. Henry, a scholar of religious studies whose research focuses on early Christianity and late Roman religion, and who earned his PhD at Boston University.
The channel sets out a rule at the start and then keeps it: it endorses no particular religious tradition and no non-religious perspective. That is what lets it move without friction from the gods of pre-Islamic Arabia to the question of Asherah and her possible link to the Israelite deity, from Buddhist presence in the Roman Empire to Plato's influence on Christian theology. The same methodological neutrality governs contemporary subjects: whose religion counts as American, whether the United States was founded as a Christian nation, whether babies are born atheists, what remains in a person after leaving religion.
Another strand treats popular culture as a legitimate object of study: why some evangelicals looked for 666 in barcodes, what The Mandalorian gets right about real-world religions, what the Odyssey gets wrong about Bronze Age Greek religion. Several episodes are made with guest researchers. The material is openly designed for teaching: the channel invites instructors to link to it in syllabi and classrooms. Visitors will find university-level explanation in the best sense, with proselytising in no direction at all.