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Although I have some reputation in the academic world, my real glory and fame stem...

I suggested that witchcraft beliefs were actually much slower to decline in the West than...

Several years ago, I wrote a post about the way that early modern Christians understood...

David interviews his mother Phyllis Miller Swartz about her just-released memoir

Chris finds that a recent book helps bring to life not just the history of...

Sedona, Arizona, is full of vortexes, as they call them locally, spots where the earth...

I have two themes today: one about the history of witchcraft; and another about an...

Today we welcome Otis W. Pickett and his colleague Brian Franklin as they share their...

A country church burned to the ground last week.  Flames billowed over its wooden spires in...

How Baptists, Lutherans, Quakers, and other Christians are drawing on American religious history to make...

Actually seeing a new book in print is a nerve-racking experience. Dare you open it,...

I have been posting about apostasy in a Christian context, and how some believers maintained...

All four of the New Testament gospels include the story of Peter's denial of Jesus....

Another story from Asia in which evangelicals sing Hallelujah in protest of totalitarian regimes

Guest blogger Emily Wenneborg considers how "old hymns and the history of Christianity can work...

Almost anything by Robert Wilken is worth reading. I have benefitted immensely from his The...

I recently wrote about Nicodemism, the Reformation and Early Modern practice of keeping one’s real...

Today we welcome Monica L. Mercado to the Anxious Bench. Monica is Assistant Professor of History at Colgate...

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but shortly after I began teaching American history,...

Check out a map of our most recent and popular blog posts! You might find...

Call it a guilty secret of Christian history: a secret about secrecy. As I have...

Are food photos on Instagram a kind of mealtime prayer? Chris thinks about the meaning...

People often change their religious identity, shifting from one faith or denomination to another. They...

Every so often, I remind myself that academia (at least in the discipline of History)...

In this collection of personal narratives, forty Jews of diverse backgrounds tell a wide range...

Fifty years after Apollo 11 began its historic journey to the surface of the moon,...

Not much more needs to be said on the conflict between Oberlin College and Gibson’s...

When I read the excellent reviews offered by the Wall Street Journal, I always enjoy...

Last time I talked about the second century philosopher Peregrinus, whom we know who went...

Today we welcome Hilde Løvdal Stephens to the Anxious Bench. Hilde is a Visiting Associate Professor...