At special times of the year such as Easter, I always like to offer seasonally appropriate posts. That is what I will be doing again this year, but if the season is suitable, the topic is… maybe not so much. In fact, I want to report on a great anti-Easter poem, which still has the power to surprise and provoke. I claim no great discoveries here, but the work in question is nothing like as well-known as it should be,... Read more
Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on July 21, 2021. I spent last week researching in the Southern Baptist Convention archives, located within the denomination’s headquarters in downtown Nashville, TN. It was a bit surreal because I had been blogging about the SBC for the last two months (here and here), and then finally found myself actually there on the ground for the first time. The archives are beautifully maintained, with friendly staff, and open to all researchers. I was... Read more
Pope Francis’s Evangelical Critics Twenty years ago, when Pope John Paul II died, American evangelicals mourned his passing as though they had lost one of their staunchest allies and most beloved friends. John Paul II was “the most influential voice for morality and peace in the world during the last 100 years,” Billy Graham declared in 2005. Today’s reactions to Pope Francis’s death from conservative American evangelicals are a real contrast to that sentiment. The Gospel Coalition (TGC) published a... Read more
Choosing Barabbas I’ve been intermittently listening to Bach’s Matthäuspassion performed by the Tölz Boys’ Choir over the last week. (You can watch it here.) It’s a sweeping and highly emotional oratorio, narrating the passion events of Matthew 26 and 27 from Martin Luther’s translation of the New Testament, along with theological and devotional commentary in the form of solos. As I listened and read along, I was struck by one section during the public trial of Jesus. In German, it’s... Read more
Last time I wrote about the amazing growth of Catholic populations in Africa, to the point that they would very soon outnumber European believers. But beyond the raw fact of numbers, the African church has many features that distinguish it sharply from our familiar Western concepts. Each, to varying degrees, affects how those growing numbers will reshape the larger church as the years go by. I won’t go into any great detail here, as I have regularly discussed these topics... Read more
After a dozen years, I bid farewell to the Anxious Bench. Read more
What is Nicaea about? Most modern accounts will focus on the theological debate between Arius and Alexander of Alexandria, but the nature of the controversy before, during, and after Nicaea is obscure. Thus, some scholars argue Nicaea is about the doctrine of God, others soteriology, and others think it has nothing to do with theology at all. While prioritizing a certain doctrine or focus is necessary in all historical accounts, it is striking how our narratives shape how we treat... Read more
Yesterday morning, I received a startling email from my sons’ Little League head coach: one of the assistant coaches, a father of their teammate, had unexpectedly died. The news had my husband and me reeling. We had just seen this dad at a team gathering after our last game. We had joked with him. He and I talked about whether we prefer people to pronounce our name in Spanish or English (he said either; I said Spanish). And now he’s gone.... Read more
We are shortly to encounter a major landmark in the history of Christianity, and indeed of the world’s religions more generally. Within a couple of years, probably as early as 2026, the number of Roman Catholics in Africa will match that of Europe. (I am speaking of Catholics, not of Christians more generally). Thereafter, the African figure will surge ahead of the European. Let me repeat that statement. By about 2026, there will be as many Catholics in Africa as... Read more
The song “Deportee” came on my radar researching folk singer Joan Baez’s support of Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers (UFW). She publicly performed the song at the memorial service for murdered farmworker Juan De La Cruz. This footage is from the documentary Fighting For Our Lives about the 1973 strike and labor battle with the Teamsters’ union. Baez’s music closes the documentary. In fact, “Deportee” appeared as a special accompanying album with her album Blessed Are… that came out in... Read more
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