This is one of my favorite posts from my Anxious Bench archives. It is the first essay I wrote after finishing the final edits for The Making of Biblical Womanhood, and I sometimes wonder if I should have tried to include it in the book (you’ll see why). One day I hope to do a larger project on Dorothy Scarborough. Until then, enjoy this Texas ghost story. I couldn’t tell you how many times I had walked past her. Dozens... Read more
Today I am so pleased to welcome David Drake Criscione to the Bench. David is a History PhD student at Baylor University. He wrote this as a blogpost book review in my Women & Religion seminar and I asked him if we could post it for Halloween. For those interested, you can watch the full clip of Fred Roger’s interview with Margaret Hamilton here: https://www.misterrogers.org/videos/margaret-hamilton/. On May 14, 1975, Fred Rogers invited actress Margaret Hamilton, famed for her portrayal of... Read more
Chris tells the story of Earl Bakken, the Lutheran engineer whose work on the pacemaker helped make Medtronic the largest medical device company in the world. Read more
I have posted a few times on issues of translating the Bible, and how they affect its interpretation through the centuries. My subject today is on the bizarre side. Does it affect key issues of faith, scripture, and orthodoxy? Not in the slightest. But it does point to some important themes in understanding translation, even some of the most venerable and respected versions of the Bible. There is a Hebrew word that we transliterate as tan, with the feminine form... Read more
Today’s post concerns two topics of long-standing interest to me, and how – very oddly – they intersect. One is horror and supernatural fiction; the other is Bible translation and its dilemmas. How on earth does one illuminate the other? Briefly, the familiar translations of the Bible gave surprisingly rich potential for horror authors in search of frightening supernatural texts and imagery, quite apart from all those familiar demons. And yes, I do intend this as appropriate reading for the... Read more
“Evangelical,” the director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Christian Liberty Commission said in 1976, was a “Yankee word” that did not apply to Southern Baptists. Today, of course, the situation is vastly different, with many northern evangelicals who don’t see eye-to-eye with the Southern Baptist Convention viewing “evangelical” as a southern word that doesn’t accurately describe their own views. There is no question that the evangelical movement has been southernized and rebranded during the past 45 years. This leads to... Read more
The magazine has consistently encouraged its readers to think better, pray harder, and integrate spiritual renewal and social justice. Read more
What does it mean to be "evangelical"? Is that term still useful? Chris reports on a recent adult Sunday School class and shares some suggested readings. Read more
In her fascinating book, Beyond the Synagogue, Rachel Gross describes a wide range of activities that help American Jews find meaning and connection: visiting historic synagogues, conducting Jewish genealogy research, eating Jewish foods, and sharing Jewish stories and toys with children. According to Gross, these activities are not only expressions of Jewish nostalgia, but important and often overlooked forms of American Jewish religious practice. She details these aspects of American Jewish life not only to illuminate the significance of Jewish... Read more
The excellent scholar Crawford Gribben has an ambitious new book out on The Rise and Fall of Christian Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2021). Crawford has kindly agreed to write a post arising from his work. The Death Of Christian Ireland – And Its Resurrection? By Crawford Gribben Over the last 30 years, Irish culture has rapidly secularised. Religious identities and practices that were 1500 years in the making have suddenly disappeared – and few people seem to miss them. Yet... Read more
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