This month I’ve been visiting secret places. I study English Catholic families in the seventeenth century who were trying to pass their faith on to their children in the face of persecution. My husband and I traveled to the North of England to track down the stories, secret communities, and ways of living that these obstinate Catholics left. I visited schools that they covertly formed in private homes for the local Catholic children, went to ancient holy sites of furtive... Read more
My present work concerns the massive discoveries of early Christian texts, documents, and scriptures in the years between roughly 1870 and 1930 – that is, a generation or two before the famous finds at Nag Hammadi and Qumran in the 1940s. I have blogged a lot about this in the past, but I don’t think I ever asked one question, which was: why then? Why did that whole process not start even earlier? Today I want to offer an explanation,... Read more
I have been posting on texts and scriptures as they are lost and found, with an emphasis on gospels and sacred writings. Today, I want to complicate the story by asking how “lost” some texts ever get to be, when they might actually be hiding right in front of us, in plain sight. What made me think of this was the devious story of a well-regarded ancient writing called the Apology, by the second-century Christian philosopher Aristides. This was in... Read more
We are living in a New Gilded Age. Or, so said Paul Krugman in 2014 as he reviewed economist Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. In the dozen years since, nothing seems to suggest the name is less applicable. The gap between the top 1% and the 99% is almost unfathomable. From superyachts, superstar wedding singers, and half-a-million bottle service, to space tourism, apocalypse bunkers, and the Mar-A-Lago face, the obscene spectacles of mega-wealth grow by the day. Where... Read more
Homer is having a bit of a moment. The controversy around Christopher Nolan’s creative decisions in his forthcoming Odyssey, the recent discovery of an Egyptian mummy buried with some lines from the Iliad, and of course, posts from my esteemed Anxious Bench co-contributors Philip Jenkins, have shown that the ancient poet remains relevant to our culture. Of course, we might ask ourselves why this is the case: is it the power in his words and meter? Is it the complicated... Read more
I have been posting about the loss and rediscovery of venerated ancient texts, including Scriptures. In a textual-based religion, such as Christianity, it is easy to attach a special significance to such rediscoveries, to suppose that they are destined to play a special Providential role at a special moment. Traditionally, what carried more weight than gospels? Therefore, clearly, a lost gospel must be a very special thing. But by the same token, it is tempting for anyone wishing to make... Read more
I have to admit that I am a little bit obsessed with Taylor Swift’s song “Elizabeth Taylor.” The fascination began with the simple fact that I just enjoy the song, probably listening to it at least once a day on my daily walk. Then the music video came out, which features scenes from Taylor’s movies (Elizabeth’s not Taylor Alison’s) and from her personal life: The video is like a time machine taking the viewer back to the age of classic... Read more
“Your Petitioners believe in the Republican doctrine that all men are born free and are entitled to protection by Law, in person and property —” ~Citizens of Plympton, MA “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” ~Herman Melville, Moby Dick I’ve been joking with friends recently that I’m hunting a white whale. My whale though is an enormous scroll of paper that may or may not have survived to today. If it has, it would... Read more
Review of Udi Greenberg, The End of Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of European Christian Life, 1880s-1970s (Harvard University Press, 2025) The Dartmouth historian Udi Greenberg has taken on an important and ambitious topic: the evolution of Protestant-Catholic relations in continental Western Europe from the late nineteenth century through the 1970s. Few would deny that relations between the two confessions improved markedly over this period. Whether this progress amounts to anything like an “end of the schism,” however, is... Read more
The 5 first-class relics of Cristero martyrs displayed during Mass on a table with the blood-red tablecloth, April 17, 2026. Photo by author. The visiting priest, originally from Jalisco, intoned the final prayers of the Mass in his soft Spanish and we made the Sign of the Cross, standing expectantly in our pew. I glanced at my youngest son, just weeks away from making his First Holy Communion, and I could feel his anticipation. The moment had arrived! Everyone began... Read more
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