My Year in Books (And a Few For Next Year!)

December 27, 2023 By Andrea L. Turpin

2023 was a great year for books. Admittedly the book I spent the most time with was my own book-in-progress. Thanks to the generosity of the Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grant for Researchers and Baylor University, I have been able to spend this past year working on a manuscript on how Protestant women navigated the Protestant fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the early twentieth century. This hundred-year-old split between theological and social conservatives and liberals contributed to the modern American culture wars, both... Read more

The Source of Hope in a Violent Year

December 26, 2023 By Daniel K. Williams

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2023 was a year of violence. In addition to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine – a war that pundits said at its outset posed the greatest threat to European stability since 1945 – Israel was plunged into its most protracted and horrific war in decades after Hamas attacked in October. In addition, thousands of people died in a war in Sudan this fall, and a few thousand more have died in intermittent fighting in Ethiopia that followed the... Read more

Making Christmas Magic When There Are Few Christmases Left

December 25, 2023 By Melissa Borja

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Christmas is a holiday that celebrates family. This is true for Christians who celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. The nativity scene that Christians display to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ is, at its most basic level, a depiction of a family: the Holy Family of Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. And it’s also true for those Americans who celebrate Christmas primarily as a non-religious cultural holiday. In a 2017 Pew study, the vast majority of respondents (82 percent)... Read more

Dunwell, Satanic Temple, and Christian Nationalism’s Failing

December 23, 2023 By Guest Contributor

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Iowa state House Representative Jon Dunwell (R) has been on a hero’s journey for the past two weeks. The Representative, who is also an ordained minister in the Christian and Missionary Alliance, has been confronting Christian nationalism after a display was set up earlier this month in the Capitol building. Dunwell’s stand on X (formerly Twitter), which has generated thousands of comments and over 7 million views, has directly challenged Christian nationalism—the ideology blending white evangelical religious and ethnic norms... Read more

In Every Heart There Is a Womb: Mary’s Pregnancy and Ours

December 22, 2023 By Jacob Randolph

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As I’ve been thinking about what to bring to my column this month in preparation for the birth of Christ, two things have returned to the forefront of my mind again and again. First, I can’t get over a chapter I read by Barbara Newman on the metaphors of pregnancy and childbirth in her book, The Permeable Self: Five Medieval Relationships. (By the way, I read anything Barbara Newman writes when I can find time. She’s brilliant.) I’m particularly interested... Read more

When The Darkness Did Not Grasp The Light

December 21, 2023 By Philip Jenkins

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Over the Christmas season, our churches will be reading the magnificent Prologue to John’s Gospel, which is the foundation of so much of the Christian theology of Incarnation. This tells of the Light, and how “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1.5 RSV, also NIV) or alternatively, “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (KJV). Overcome and comprehended – aren’t those radically different words? Is one wrong? Why do... Read more

From Oxford Don to Field Preacher

December 20, 2023 By David Swartz

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In my historical research I try to find a balance between the beautiful and the terrible. This Christmas post, an ode to biblical history and Wesleyan history, focuses on the beautiful. Read more

Spending Advent with Our (Church) Fathers and Mothers

December 19, 2023 By Adam Renberg

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Devotional literature is everywhere. It might be found on your grandma’s bookshelf, the catalogue of a Christian publisher, or the ‘religious book’ section in your local Walmart. While there might be disparity between the quality of certain devotionals, these works are meant to foster and encourage spiritual discipline, expand our understanding of the biblical text, or simply bring comfort amidst a challenging season. While the format of most modern devotionals is unique, this practice is anything but. Christians have long... Read more

Shall a Nation be Born in a Day? Megachurches on Gaza

December 18, 2023 By Erica Ramirez

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Hi! I am a sociologist on a tour of Texas Megachurches. Check out my first post here. When I first began this tour, I set out looking to document how Texas churches do (or do not) advance what sociologists call Christian Nationalism. Per sociologists Sam Perry and Phil Gorski, “Christian nationalism is an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of American civic life with a particular kind of Christianity.” At its core, Christian Nationalism expresses a priority for Christianity... Read more

Before You Came to Birth: Grieving Children Lost in the Womb

December 15, 2023 By Verónica A. Gutiérrez

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I have been struggling lately. Grief that generally rests quietly in my heart has been swelling up at unexpected, inauspicious moments. It began at the end of Divine Liturgy on the third Sunday in November. Sorrow had filled my heart that morning, though I wasn’t sure why. When our priest came out to name those whose anniversary of “falling asleep in the Lord” occurred in November, I stiffened. Glancing in my direction, he mentioned Ana Verónica, the daughter I lost... Read more