“I love to look at the work of God. I love to see the work of God.” One might look for the work of God in many places. Onnie Lee Logan, “granny” midwife who delivered thousands of babies around Mobile, Alabama, before the state outlawed her profession, saw the work of God in the birth of a new human. Logan tells her story in a well known oral history and describes delivering babies as a calling. She recounts praying before... Read more
Based on long study of Christian history, I offer a couple of strictly non-scientific impressions and guidelines. The first is that the religion is more consistently weird in its expressions than we usually assume. Also, we can find a remarkable number of long-term continuities and connections, if we remain open to noticing them. And finally, any long-term exploration of such links has to travel a long way outside the familiar world of European Christendom. To illustrate these points, I will... Read more
The most important moment of Senator Mitt Romney’s speech yesterday was when he wasn’t actually speaking. That moment arrived near the beginning of his remarks, when he talked about his faith. “As a senator-juror, I swore an oath before God to exercise impartial justice,” he said. “I am profoundly religious. My faith is at the heart of who I am.” And what followed next was silence. It lasted twelve long seconds. During these twelve seconds, the cameras didn’t offer a... Read more
I am not a Methodist—well, not anymore. I grew up in the United Methodist Church (UMC), but have been a member of various other denominations since my college years. So the current debates within the United Methodist Church are not my fight. But they do interest me, both because of my religious history and because I am a religious historian. Most mainline American Protestant denominations have liberalized their stance on same-sex relationships in recent years. The Presbyterian Church, USA (PCUSA),... Read more
In the mid-19th century, Minnesota was part of the American frontier — and the destination of Catholic, Episcopal, Congregational, and other "home missionaries" seeking to convert indigenous persons and white settlers alike. Read more
Last year, I wrote several post about the relationship between Judaism and Hellenism, the issue that sparked the Maccabean revolt. The anti-Hellenist rebels won the war, and secured national independence. But that certainly did not mean the end of Greek influence on Jews, and indeed on the emerging Christian movement. In the light of some very recent archaeological finds, we now see just how thoroughly Jews continued to absorb Greek imagery and iconography throughout what we would call the early... Read more
Through the years, I have worked on a lot of different topics. Last time, I talked about the Christian History sequence that has occupied my attention for the past two decades. My current work builds firmly on that foundation, but even so, it has taken me into some really unexpected areas. I am almost embarrassed to find how they rewrite so much of what I thought I always knew. My current book project explores the relationship between climate, climate change,... Read more
Who are evangelicals? How did the meaning of evangelicalism take shape over the course of the last two centuries? When answering those questions, historians most commonly examine denominations, congregations, and parachurch ministries, and their leaders. Daniel Vaca, Robert Gale Noyes Assistant Professor of Humanities at Brown University, explores the creation and development of evangelical identity from a different vantage point, that of the marketplace. Vaca’s recently published book is Evangelicals Incorporated: Books and the Business of Religion in America (Harvard, 2019).... Read more
Fifty years after the latinization of Latin America Mission, attempts to implement the insights of Gatu and Lores continue with only uneven success. Read more
Chris investigates the unlikely history of a much loved children's hymn. Read more
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