Empires, Slaves, and Daniel Syndrome

March 3, 2022 By Philip Jenkins

Throughout history, Empires have shaped religions worldwide, often in quite revolutionary ways. Commonly, they have their greatest impact through actions that are unconscious and unintentional. To take an example, empires fight wars, and through most of human history, that has involved various kinds of population transfer, from mass enslavement and deportation, to the forced relocation of individual captives and slaves. Those unwillingly moved people commonly take their religions along with them, and the consequences can be far reaching. The obvious... Read more

Quitting Church for Lent? Why the Desert is Not the Answer

March 2, 2022 By Nadya Williams

Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent that it ushers in, are appropriate for considering the desert as a place of spiritual growth. After all, it was Jesus’ forty days in the desert that began His earthly ministry. And yet, the stories of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, these strange people who quit Church and society to move into the desert in Late Antiquity, remind us, ironically, that the desert should never be our destination. Let us consider why not.... Read more

Centered on Jesus: A Free Devotional for Lent

March 1, 2022 By Chris Gehrz

Chris shares a free daily devotional for Lent, a faculty-written booklet that made him think of George Brushaber, the long-time Christian college president and former editor of Christian Scholar's Review and Christianity Today who died last December. Read more

Climate Shocks and the Fate of Empires (and of World Religions)

February 28, 2022 By Philip Jenkins

I have been describing the astonishing success of Buddhism across much of Southern and Eastern Asia in the first millennium AD, and how that movement suffered grave setbacks from the ninth century onward. Although Buddhism continued to be a vital cultural force, its loss of influence in India and, to a lesser extent, China, was a real setback. So why did this happen? I will argue that this resulted from the failure of the great empires that had hitherto either... Read more

After Ukraine: Apocalypse Quite Soon?

February 25, 2022 By Philip Jenkins

If you were not terrified yesterday, you were not paying attention. Something very bad indeed happened, and you may not have grasped just why it was so frightening. Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine, and that was a catastrophe in its own right. But that was only one part of the story, as Putin also said something chilling. He warned the West that “Whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that... Read more

Shifting Empires, and the Decline of Buddhism

February 24, 2022 By Philip Jenkins

Last year, we read reports of one of the great archaeological discoveries of recent years, from the Musi River, in Sumatra. Very rich finds of luxury objects, especially gold, suggest that we are dealing with the lost capital of a long forgotten empire. Srivijaya was a mighty commercial merchant empire of the seas, a thalassocracy, which controlled the Straits of Malacca, and dominated much of what we call Indonesia, Malaysia, and the South China Seas. It held its power and... Read more

Russian Invasion of the Ukraine: Reflections from a Descendant of Ukrainian Jews

February 23, 2022 By Nadya Williams

As the Russian invasion of the Ukraine begins, I struggle along with so many other Americans as a by-stander, watching horrific violations of human rights unfold across the world. But I am watching this suffering also in my capacities as a military historian, an adult convert to Christianity, and a descendant of both ethnic Russians and Ukrainian Jews. The stories of long-gone Ukrainian Jews, in particular, may not seem readily important, as the world fears a nuclear threat, as well... Read more

Is Christian History Faithful, Hopeful, and Loving?

February 22, 2022 By Chris Gehrz

Should Christian history make evident Paul's three great virtues: faith, hope, and love? Read more

Transcendentalism and Democratic Trust in Thyself

February 21, 2022 By Agnes Howard

Is there any way to weave together the cultural materials at hand to withstand what our country is becoming? This might seem like a new question. It is not. It is not even a new question for Americans, as Robert Gross demonstrates in his recent release, The Transcendentalists and their World. In the first half of the nineteenth century, that spiritual-intellectual movement was the solution for some influential writers, like Concord’s Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Those big... Read more

Empires and the Making of Buddhism (and Christianity)

February 17, 2022 By Philip Jenkins

Any long term history of Christianity must pay proper attention to one key turning point, namely the conversion of the Roman Empire to this new faith. We all have a good sense of what happened next, in terms of imperial support and patronage that spread Christianity to all corners of the very extensive world that the Romans knew. Among other factors, the empire created an ideal environment for such diffusion, through a shared language, through the spread of literacy and... Read more