The surprising origins of Kentucky's spirit Read more
The surprising origins of Kentucky's spirit Read more
He shows up in my spiritual biography of Charles Lindbergh, but I wish I knew more about a man who ran for president in the 1930s and 1940s. Not Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Norman Thomas, the Presbyterian pastor-turned-Socialist leader who lost to FDR four times—and to Herbert Hoover in 1928 and Harry Truman in 1948. He never received more than 2.2% of the popular vote (1932, when he was marked on more ballots than any American socialist not named Eugene... Read more
A couple weeks ago, when the nation was abuzz with the news that Joe Biden had chosen Kamala Harris as his running mate, my social media feeds abounded with political talk about the decision. I saw a lot of celebration, especially from women and people of color. I saw statements of criticism and concern, especially from groups who had hoped for a more progressive running mate. And, most difficult for me to ignore, I saw some very vocal (and ugly)... Read more
The HBO series Lovecraft Country is reviving interest in the author H. P. Lovecraft, in whom I have a deep proprietorial interest. He and I go back a long way. When I first discovered him back in 1968, I assumed I was the only person in the world who had heard of him. Later, I found there were plenty of others making the same assumption, until he finally entered a cultural mainstream. He is even in Penguin Modern Classics. This... Read more
Last month, Abram Van Engen contributed a post here at the Anxious Bench on “Os Guinness, Eric Metaxas, and Their Dangerous Mythos of American History.” That post prompted Os Guinness to respond to Abram, which generated a fascinating conversation exploring points of connection and dissonance. Both have graciously agreed to publish this conversation as a follow-up post. Their correspondence reveals both generational and interpretive differences, even as both work to establish common ground. It’s a longer post than usual, so... Read more
Next week Baylor’s fall semester begins. Courtesy of the pandemic, stress among both students and professors is higher going into this school year than into any other one in recent memory. Nevertheless, I am excited to return to teaching. One of my favorite things to do at Baylor is offer my biennial graduate course “Women, Gender, and Sex in American Religious History”—and this semester is the lucky one out of four! Every time I teach the course, I rotate about... Read more
For the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, Chris reviews a few ways that religion shaped the American debate over women's right to vote. Read more
Some years ago, I wrote a book called The Many Faces of Christ: The Thousand-Year Story of the Survival and Influence of the Lost Gospels. Rarely have I enjoyed writing a book more. That project involved pursuing a lot of odd historical byways through multiple cultures and different languages, and confronting some real historical mysteries. Here is one of my favorites, and one that still puzzles me. So here is a medieval religious mystery. I didn’t want to detect a... Read more
This year commemorates the 75th anniversary of Japanese surrender in the Second World War, VJ Day, Victory over Japan. Different countries date it differently, choosing either the actual date of surrender – August 14/15 – or the signing of the surrender document on September 2. Whatever date we choose, this was an epochal moment in world history. It also commemorated a horrible and tragically neglected time in Christian history. In 1998, London’s Westminster Abbey dedicated an evocative gallery of statues... Read more
A good book can turn your life around. I just finished Jesus and John Wayne by my fellow Anxious Bench blogger Kristin Kobes Du Mez. It was a revelation. I’ve been around for a while. I grew up in the subculture of American evangelicalism. If I grew a beard, it would have at least as much gray as Willie Robertson’s. But until reading Jesus and John Wayne, I did not realize the full extent of my evangelical masculine insufficiency. Where... Read more
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