A “Just Peace” for Both Israel and the Palestinians

May 28, 2024 By Daniel K. Williams

Christians didn’t have to wait until the latest round of campus protests against Israel to know that discussions about Israel and Palestine can inspire passionate moral debate about what justice really means in this case. A decade ago, the Presbyterian Church (USA) was sharply divided between partisans on both sides of a denominational debate about divestment that news reports described as “passionate.” In 2012, the denomination’s General Assembly voted by the narrowest of margins – 333 to 331 – to... Read more

How Important Are Birthdays Anyway?

May 27, 2024 By Melissa Borja

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Today is my birthday. As a religion scholar, I’ve long been fascinated by the rituals of specific holidays, and I’ve written several posts about how Americans observe a range of religious and secular feast days: Lent, Chrismukkah, snow days. Today, as I begin a new revolution around the sun, I’d like to discuss the holiday of the birthday. Birthdays and their associated rituals intrigue me because the truth is that I’m something of a birthday grinch. I was... Read more

On Being a Public Intellectual, Lord Help Us

May 23, 2024 By Philip Jenkins

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The posts I am offering right now don’t exactly constitute “autobiography,” but think of them rather as auto-archaeology. As I have remarked, anyone looking at the quite numerous books I have published through the years might be truly puzzled without understanding the various phases of my career. I have written about the Christian History Sequence for which I am best known these days, but there was also a whole previous phase in which I studied Social Problems – if you... Read more

Why is Christianity Today rankled by Taylor Swift?

May 22, 2024 By Erica Ramirez

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(This month, I am taking a short break from my megachurch visits series.) Over at CT, global managing editor Morgan Lee has a new article with a curious problematic. It’s not Israel or Palestine or the 2024 election; no, it’s “Taylor Swift,” whom Lee laments, “can do whatever she wants.” Lee’s coverage of Swift’s latest, “The Tortured Poets Department” (TTPD), focuses attention on the singer’s (purportedly) lackluster songwriting therein. TTPD’s shortcomings don’t simply reflect a slump; in Lee’s take, they... Read more

They Said What Now? On Vaguely Defined Theological Language

May 21, 2024 By Adam Renberg

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Throughout my systematic theology class this semester, I ushered students into the painful process of learning theological terms. Like any discipline, theology has specific language (mostly Greek or Latin phrases, because we are pompous like that) which are used to describe certain ideas—once you learn the terms, you can understand the ideas espoused. So, for example, my students learn that the term aseity is derived from Latin phrase, a se which means “from itself”. This term is then employed to... Read more

Teaching Latin American History via Historical Fiction

May 17, 2024 By Verónica A. Gutiérrez

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One afternoon in early November 1519, a Mexica youth named Mitzli, son of a skilled jewel worker, was walking along one of the footpaths in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, capital of the Mexica people. Nearing the southern causeway to Ixtapalapa, that is, a raised road built into Lake Texcoco to provide access to the mainland, he noticed a commotion. Moctezuma, the Tlatoani (Great Speaker) of the Mexica people was standing near a newcomer, whom he would later learn was Hernando Cortés; both leaders... Read more

To What Green Altar?

May 16, 2024 By Philip Jenkins

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I have been writing about my writing, or rather about the topics on which I have researched and published through the centuries. Today’s topic, the Satanism Scare. In the 1980s, the issue of child sexual abuse attracted enormous public attention, and themes of trauma and recovery generated a whole publishing industry. One of the most popular and influential recovery texts, The Courage to Heal (1988) includes the story of a woman who claimed that she had as a child been... Read more

Sheep in Wolves’ Clothing: A Parable and a Provocation

May 15, 2024 By Wyatt Reynolds

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“If you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to…meet a politician where you expected to find a priest.” In the almost 200 years since Alexis de Tocqueville wrote those words, evangelicals have often found themselves playing the role of politician instead of priest. And along the way, there have been others who question this role reversal. After all, Jeremiah 29 does not seem to leave room for those attempting to become kings. Evangelical historians over... Read more

And Come to the Defense of Those Targeted

May 14, 2024 By Joey Cochran

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Christian leaders and institutions must come to the defense of those targeted by white Christian nationalists. About a month ago, there was this whole embrolio surrounding pastor Josh Howerton of Lakepoint Church in Rockwall, Texas, after Sheila Gregoire posted a clip on X from a recent sermon of his, where he offered a rather problematic Wedding night scenario as a sermon illustration, which Howerton later defended as a “joke”. Beth Moore wrote an insightful thread in response to these events,... Read more

The Fate of Humanities at a Lutheran University

May 13, 2024 By Thomas Albert Howard

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Save the Humanities at Valparaiso University Valparaiso University, where I teach, has been doing some belt-tightening recently. Sadly, some departments–theology, philosophy, German- that have defined this Lutheran University for decades have been put in a “discontinuous process.” This does not necessarily mean that they will be discontinued, but all affected departments must make the case for their ongoing existence and/or seek mergers with other departments. Guiding by departmental memos, the administration will make decisions over the summer. For those of... Read more