Yes, Pentecostals Really Do Need Those Airplanes

Last updated on: November 10, 2025 at 10:14 am By Alex Mayfield

There are a lot of stereotypes and caricatures that attach themselves to Pentecostal and Charismatic forms of Christianity. Preeminent among them is the jet-setting, charismatic preacher who needs his personal jet for the work of the Lord. It is a metonym for the broad critique of the prosperity gospel, but it has far too many historical examples to treat it as a simple caricature. Pentecostals ministers need their airplanes. To be fair to Pentecostals, however, lots of evangelical ministries need... Read more

Mothers of the Church: Paula of Rome

Last updated on: October 20, 2025 at 10:09 am By Adam Renberg

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Of all the passages of the Gospels, I find Christ’s words in Luke 14 to be among the most challenging: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26, NIV). Now, I have ways of interpreting this passage which do not offend our sensibilities too much, but I still struggle with them because Christ means to offend and provoke... Read more

Satellite Ministries: Christian TV in the Middle East

Last updated on: October 16, 2025 at 7:10 am By Philip Jenkins

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Febe Armanios is an impressive scholar of the history of the Middle East, whose wide-ranging work focuses on the history of religious minorities, and on the connections between food practices and religious cultures. Her most recent book, titled Satellite Ministries: The Rise of Christian Television in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, 2025), deals with multiple issues of enormous interest to me personally, including the relationship between religion and electronic media, the rapidly shifting balance of religions in the Middle... Read more

“Nations are made by men, not paper constitutions”

Last updated on: October 9, 2025 at 9:11 pm By Paul Thompson

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For over ten years my colleague and friend Paul Yandle and I have been comparing southern history and contemporary politics. Unlike me, he is a southerner, and unlike me, his research has focused on southern politics after the Civil War, with special attention to issues of race and voting rights. He is an expert in how southern politics functioned in the wake of emancipation. So this month I asked him to be a guest writer on my blog, and to... Read more

The Benefit of a Government Shutdown (for my students in DC)

Last updated on: October 9, 2025 at 11:37 pm By Lisa Clark Diller

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This summer I picked up the book Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service. Each chapter features someone who works in a department of the federal government and while delving into their particular story and interests author Michael Lewis also reveals the lesser-known services provided by our tax dollars. I finished the book just in time for the government shutdown, but I unexpectedly got to have my own round of introductions to the human face of the public... Read more

Connected Histories: Asian Christians in the 1950s

Last updated on: September 29, 2025 at 10:25 am By Philip Jenkins

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Another guest blogpost today. By way of introduction, Frieder Ludwig is an outstanding scholar of World/Global Christianity, and especially in its historical dimensions. He is presently the co-editor of the two books bearing the title Transloyalties, which study the close and often surprising interactions and “connected histories” between various churches during the era of historical Christian expansion. Respectively, these are more fully Transloyalties: Connected Histories and World Christianity during the Interwar Period 1919-1939 and Transloyalties: Connected Histories and World Christianity... Read more

Dylan, Cash, and the Holy Land

Last updated on: October 7, 2025 at 11:02 pm By Michael Jimenez

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We are living at a time period when the rapidity of the daily news, even what seems the most innocuous, feels overwhelming upon receipt. There are many options to different sources but some of these have a spirit of cynicism and cruelty about the most important topics of the day. Often this is where the online spaces, especially social media, looks its worst. What am I talking about? The reactions to the latest Taylor Swift album, of course. Just kidding—but... Read more

Lessons in Listening from a Scandinavian Witchcraft Trial

Last updated on: October 6, 2025 at 4:36 am By Lynneth Renberg

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It seems seasonally appropriate to start October with a post about a witchcraft trial– particularly one that defies expectations for what one might find in an early modern witchcraft case. And this is an especially well-known case, at least in scholarship on Scandinavia: the trial of Anders Poulsen, in February 1692. The Trial The events of the trial are summarized and analyzed in Rune Blix Hagen’s chapter “Traces of Shamanism in the Witch Trials of Norway: The 1692 Trial of... Read more

Pastoral Leadership in a time of Christian Nationalism

Last updated on: October 9, 2025 at 6:42 pm By Ansley Quiros

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We hear much about Christian nationalism these days, and for good reason. Pastors, pundits, and presidents alike champion control and dominance as means to recover an imagined, nostalgic, strong Christian America. While most Americans (70%) remain skeptics or rejectors of Christian nationalism, the ideology is embraced at higher levels by older, less educated, and churchgoing Americans. Around half of those who attend religious services weekly or more qualify as Christian nationalism Adherents or Sympathizers (51%). The Church is split, almost... Read more

Biblical and Christian Images in the Movie SINNERS

Last updated on: October 3, 2025 at 10:23 am By Philip Jenkins

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We have a guest blog today from my good friend Kevin Barron – more properly, the Rev. Kevin Barron, as he is an Episcopal priest. Like many of us, he has been deeply impressed by the current hit film Sinners, by Ryan Coogler, which is assuredly destined for glory at next year’s Academy Awards. But Kevin goes well beyond conventional enthusiasm for the film, which he has been exploring with the passion that others devote to the Rocky Horror Picture... Read more

How many disciples did Jesus choose?