How you phrase a question goes a long way to determining the answer. That comment is particularly true in terms of the categories we commonly use to frame historical problems, and indeed, current realities. That general point is much in my mind right now, as I complete a book I am writing on the history of the Cold War, in the era 1945-1991, and I focus on issues of historiography. We devote a lot of attention to determining why historical... Read more
Today we welcome Elizabeth Jemison to the Anxious Bench. She is Assistant Professor of Religion at Clemson University and the author of Christian Citizens: Race and Politics in the Post-Emancipation South, published recently by the University of North Carolina Press. Why discuss “Christianity” and “citizenship” together in a study of the South after the Civil War? Early in my research, I noticed that the meanings of both Christian identity and citizenship were hotly debated in the postemancipation South, yet many people across racial... Read more
Along the way, Griffith pauses this narrative to make an important point: that it didn’t have to turn out that way. Read more
As news breaks that Beth Moore is breaking with the Southern Baptist Convention, Chris looks back at the significance of an evangelical leader about whom we've written often in recent years. Read more
To my non-expert ears, one of the most persistent themes sounding in American religious history is that of Americans wishing their country were more religious. Nowadays, that concern usually attaches to the much-discussed rise of the “religious nones.” When the General Social Survey began in 1972, just 5% of its respondents identified with no religion. But as political scientist Ryan Burge notes, that number has skyrocketed since reaching double digits a quarter-century ago, doubling from 12% in 1996 to 24%... Read more
Amid the onslaught of horrifying news about the winter surge in California, one story weighs particularly heavy on my heart: three members of the same family, all Filipino American nurses, all dead of Covid-19 within a month of one another. First the mother passed away, and then the father died a week later. Their son was intubated but eventually succumbed to the disease in late January. I knew about this family not because their deaths had made the news, but... Read more
Some parts of the Bible raise a lot of questions and debates, and indeed are often cited as the detonators that drive people away from their faith. I offer an an unusual example, which offers quite a few challenges. Quite seriously, think of this as a Lenten exercise, comparable to the historical themes Chris Gehrz discussed here recently. I had a friend (now deceased) who in his college years had lost his conservative Christian faith, and in fact became quite... Read more
Today we welcome Elesha Coffman back to the Anxious Bench. Elesha is associate professor of history at Baylor University and editor of Fides et Historia, the journal of the Conference on Faith and History. When Tim Larsen invited me to write on Margaret Mead for the Oxford Spiritual Lives series, the first thing I did was look Mead up on Google. The name rang no bells for me. If I had been a bit older, though, and more... Read more
I wrote last month about my new course on the United States in Global Perspective that I am teaching through the lens of Science, Technology, and Medicine. What I didn’t mention is that all the books for the course were written by women. Weirdly, this is a total coincidence. I just picked particularly readable books on the topic–that also raise important ethical questions. But it’s perfect for women’s history month! So, without further ado, if you are looking for a... Read more
As he both teaches a class on World War II and observes the season of Lent, Chris has started to see history itself as a spiritual discipline that helps us contemplate sin, mortality, and the seeming absence of God. Read more
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