Scholarship on religion has advanced in a number of exciting and valuable directions in recent decades. The field of material religion in particular focuses attention on how people use objects as part of their devotional lives. Urban geographers look at pilgrimage routes, festivals, and engagements beyond the church walls, while cultural historians look at the construction of places of worship, their development over time, and their significance for their communities. Archaeologists examine the built legacies of institutions run by religious orders, gathering valuable evidence of voices and lives that are otherwise hard to access. These scholarly approaches deepen our understanding of the role of religion in society, and inform contemporary approaches to aspects of our religious built and material heritage. This talk will outline some of these approaches to the history of religion and religious heritage, and explore the different questions that scholars are asking across a range of geographical and temporal contexts. It will also consider some of the sources that are increasingly being used by these scholars, and how new forms of access facilitate both new methodologies and insights. In doing so, I hope that I will add to the rich conversation at DPASSH about religious collections, archives, and their future preservation.