Archives

July 2025

July 15, 2025
For today's post, I'm going to focus a bit more on some of the theological...
July 11, 2025
Lynneth Miller Renberg’s discussion of archival silences and archival shouting in Listening to Archival Silence:...
July 10, 2025
In 1893, Congregationalist minister Josiah Strong (1847-1916) was a leading figure in the Social Gospel...
July 09, 2025
Last month's post I briefly discussed the topic of summer reading. Before that post, I...
July 04, 2025
We love a nice round number—and 250 years since the U.S. War of Independence began...
July 03, 2025
Dealing as it does in broadly national and patriotic themes, I think the following post...
July 01, 2025
On a recent trip to Turkey and Greece, where I loved the churches, mosques, and...

June 2025

June 26, 2025
In my current project on the early 1890s, I have written a good deal about...
June 24, 2025
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago today in the case...
June 23, 2025
Apparently, the 12-day War is ending, all thanks to Trump's God-gilded realpolitik. What do I...
June 20, 2025
If you pay any attention to Southern Baptist media surrounding the SBC’s annual conventions, you...
June 19, 2025
A current project of mine focuses on the year of 1893 as a critical turning...
June 18, 2025
“All hail to the Printing Press and all its beautiful adjuncts, and all hail to...
June 17, 2025
Moral failings in the church are not a new phenomenon—to read the pages of Christian...
June 13, 2025
“To go on pilgrimage is not simply to visit a place to admire its treasures...
June 12, 2025
My recent blogs have focused on the year 1893, which I believe marked multiple critical...
June 11, 2025
It is summer time and it is usually the season I try to get as...
June 09, 2025
Recently I was discussing Critical Race Theory with a professor colleague of mine who in...
June 06, 2025
The Grandparent Effect I didn’t grow up with a grandparent nearby. And while my parents...
June 05, 2025
This post offer a translation between British and American English, and suggests why you really...
June 03, 2025
Today’s post is a mix of methodological and personal musings, thinking about how our work...
June 02, 2025
If you follow data and polling around religion and American politics, you’ve probably (whether knowingly...

May 2025

May 29, 2025
I have been describing the cultural and spiritual transformations  that occurred in the United States...
May 27, 2025
A review of John G. Turner, Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American...
May 23, 2025
It's almost Southern Baptist Convention season again and, as the argument over women's roles in...
May 22, 2025
I am currently writing about the year 1893, and arguing that it was of immense...
May 21, 2025
Growing up Pentecostal, my introduction to Catholic life came slowly and almost accidentally when a...
May 20, 2025
I had the privilege of attending a conference in Rome on the Council of Nicaea...
May 16, 2025
Last Thursday morning, May 8, 2025, as I finished up a morning Zoom call with...
May 15, 2025
There are years when everything seems to happen at once, years that shape conditions for...
Related posts from Anxious Bench
Evangelical
The Cats of Cyprus (Church History on Vacation)
Anxious Bench
Evangelical
Ancient Church Discipline: On Sin and Rehabilitation
Anxious Bench
Evangelical
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Who Can Be Called "Pastor"?
Anxious Bench
Evangelical
Nicene Worship: Then and Now
Anxious Bench