My daughter told a joke this week. “What do you call a priest who becomes a lawyer? A father-in-law!” She laughed so hard I couldn’t help but join her. It was a bright spot in my day and I shared it on twitter, just for a fun timeline cleanse. I was rather surprised when the joke received more than 21,000 views, 7 retweets, and 353 likes. One comment caught my eye. Becky Castle Miller reminded that the punch line could... Read more
Two recent biographers argue that Jimmy Carter was actually a significant U.S. president, in part because of a commitment to international human rights that was likely rooted in Carter's faith as a born-again Christian. Read more
One of the greatest popular culture events in Early Modern London was Bartholomew Fair, a three day extravaganza held each August. A major attraction in 1707 had a religious theme, in the form of “a choice droll or puppet-shew” mocking religious fanatics and so-called prophets, and their deceived followers. The would-be “French Prophets” were a special target of derision. “There … their strange voices and involuntary agitations are admirably well acted, by the motion of wires, and inspiration of pipes.”... Read more
Last time, I talked about the overwhelming climate shock that befell Europe in the year 1709. Extreme cold and crushing rainfall caused famine, plague, and general misery across the continent, conditions that endured well into the next decade. Millions perished. In the circumstances of the time, people inevitably turned to religious explanations of the crisis: God was evidently angry, and was intervening to punish his straying subjects. Such a crisis could not fail to bring religious scapegoating, and the best... Read more
Supposedly, the split among American evangelical Protestants over slavery in the Civil War era reduced the hegemony of biblical authority in American religious and public life. Before the Civil War, American Christians trusted the Bible to give them the answer to every moral and religious question. But when American Protestants could not agree on what the Bible said about the most important moral question of their time – the question of slavery, which resulted in a civil war with more... Read more
The jarring result, after centuries of Christian expansion to the East, is a burgeoning phenomenon of “reverse mission.” The East now targets the West. Read more
Why Chris thinks that historians have a role to play in improving evangelical catechesis — the church's way of teaching disciples of Jesus Christ. Read more
Recent acts of violence and racism – most notably, the murders of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 and of eight Asian American women in Atlanta in March 2021 – have prompted intense discussions about how different groups experience the persistent problem of racism in the United States. Yet conspicuously absent in many conversations, especially those about Asian Americans, is a serious engagement in how religion shapes the ways that people both perpetuate and disrupt injustice. Jonathan... Read more
My latest book is Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith: How Changes in Climate Drive Religious Upheaval. It argues that climate factors – especially sudden climate shocks – have had a very powerful influence on shaping religion as it has developed through history. Partly, that is through the scapegoating and persecution with which societies respond to eras of famine, plague, and the literal darkening of the skies. In some cases, by no means all, new prophets arise, new sects form, and apocalyptic... Read more
Today I am so pleased to welcome Katherine Goodwin to The Anxious Bench. Katherine is a third year PhD student at Baylor University in the History department. She studies religion and culture in Late Medieval/Early Modern Europe and is currently studying for her comprehensive exams. I think you will all appreciate her assessment of Gerda Lerner’s significant book The Creation of Patriarchy; but those who have already read The Making of Biblical Womanhood may find it especially interesting. I recently asked... Read more
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