Recently, I was one of several historians of the 1970s-1980s era interviewed by New York Times journalist Clay Risen. The article’s subtitle reads “The fall of Kabul is not the fall of Saigon. But historians still point to some useful parallels and lessons.” So how did Vietnam affect US politics and culture over the following decade or two, and are there analogies for Afghanistan? Here are some additional thoughts on that currently pressing, and tragic, topic. When we think of... Read more
What does it mean to be a Christian historian? I’ve been one for almost a quarter-century, so I should know. But I don’t. On a banal level, it means that one is a Christian and a historian. Check and check. But what does it mean to put my faith in Jesus Christ and my vocation as a Christian together? When I started out on this journey, I thought I knew my mission. When I was figuring out where to attend... Read more
It was the title that first caught my eye. Evangelical theologian Owen Strachan named his recent book, Christianity and Wokeness, after the classic 1923 fundamentalist critique of liberal Protestantism, Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen. As a fellow author, I know that writers don’t always get to choose their own book titles. But Strachan leans into this parallel within the book’s text. In his introduction, Strachan writes of Christianity and Liberalism that “Machen famously defined liberalism [liberal Protestantism] not... Read more
Chris has a new book out today... but realized that "thinking of this book as 'mine' can obscure much about how books are written, published, and read." Read more
This past week, Andrew Walls died, aged 93. As a pioneering scholar of Global/World Christianity, he has already attracted some deeply appreciative encomia, not least from my friend Tommy Kidd at the Gospel Coalition, and there will be plenty of other tributes. But here, let me suggest that even such appreciations will fall short of the mark in offering an accurate view of the man that Christianity Today described back in 2007 as “the most important person you don’t know.”... Read more
I have described my forthcoming book on The Global History of the Cold War, and talked about some of the things that struck me as novel or surprising. I am continuing that theme today, looking at how the information and research that we now have available has transformed what we knew, or thought we knew, about that era. Specifically, let me look at the theme of what we might call cuddly dictators – Communist rulers who were actually far more... Read more
Guest blogger Jonathan Wilson suggests how historians can "help our fellow citizens" — including fellow church members — "understand what history’s all about in the first place." Read more
How can we tell whether a particular Christian is likely to feel more comfortable in a mainline Protestant church than in an evangelical congregation? The finding last month by the Public Religion Research Institute’s (PRRI) 2020 Census of American Religion that white mainline Protestants now outnumber white evangelicals in the United States generated a spate of headlines about the new appeal of mainline Protestantism for a younger, more progressive crowd of white Christians who have become fed up with the... Read more
When the United States entered World War I, reports Chris, it wasn't just German Americans who suffered the effects of xenophobia. Swedish, Dutch, Czech, and other immigrant churches were prevented from worshipping and teaching in their own language in the Midwest and Great Plains. Read more
In the ebb and flow religious history, reformist movement are often necessary, especially perhaps in the modern age as they help religious communities better understand and adapt to changing times. Sometimes, however, they are blithely accommodationist, even obsequious to regnant powers, rendering well-meaning souls craven in their desire to become au-courant and accepted in the corridors of the bien-pensant. The allure of academic stature and media attention is often the culprit for the scholarly set. But I’ve recently come across... Read more
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