Evangelicalism Is Not a Political Problem

Last updated on: October 10, 2019 at 2:51 pm By johnturner

81% of American evangelicals voted for Donald Trump. 81%! For many observers of American religion and politics, this is baffling. How could these conservative, Bible-believing Protestants lend their support to a foul-mouthed, twice-divorced philanderer and slanderer? My hunch is that many of the pundits who remark on this phenomenon are not actually all that baffled. They probably expect evangelicals to be hypocrites. Moreover, most of those pundits have been upset with evangelical voting patterns for decades. They were also irate... Read more

The Radical Jim Wallis

Last updated on: October 9, 2019 at 8:39 am By David Swartz

A radical political style resurfaces on the evangelical left in its challenge of Trump Read more

The Magic of History

Last updated on: October 7, 2019 at 9:57 pm By Chris Gehrz

Reading Harry Potter with his kids has got Chris thinking that history can be almost magical. Read more

Two Major Works of Scholarship

Last updated on: October 6, 2019 at 5:08 pm By Thomas Albert Howard

Permit me to heartily recommend two scholarly books hot of the press. The first is a companion to that ubiquitous medieval and early-modern institution known as a “confraternity”—lay spiritual clubs or societies, if you will. Recent decades have witnessed an upsurge of scholarship on the topic, so the time is ripe for a guidebook that synthesizes recent work and suggests new areas of inquiry. Herewith the details: Konrad Eisenbichler, ed., A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Confraternities (Brill Companions... Read more

We Compiled The Bible

Last updated on: October 10, 2019 at 3:17 pm By Philip Jenkins

I have posted on how the Bible came to take the shape that we know, and how that precise shape varies in different parts of the Christian world. I recently came across a declaration that framed that story nicely, and which demands a “Discuss!” after it. Catholics Come Home is an evangelistic ministry that appeals to former and lapsed Catholics and seeks to draw them back into active church membership, largely through ads, television commercials, and a practically-oriented website. They... Read more

What I learned from (almost) attending a Trump rally

Last updated on: October 3, 2019 at 9:23 pm By Kristin Du Mez

In January 2016, Donald Trump claimed that he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone and not lose supporters. With the impeachment inquiry underway, his words ring prophetic. With blatant corruption in full view, with the president turning to foreign powers to pursue his own personal gain, claiming that a coup is afoot, and labelling political opponents traitors, his critics are left wondering if there is anything he could do that would cause his supporters to... Read more

What If Biblical Womanhood Isn’t Biblical?

Last updated on: October 2, 2019 at 8:24 am By Beth Allison Barr

A student stopped me after class recently. She wanted to know if I listened to the Christian Feminism podcast because the latest episode mentioned me. “I realized,” she said, “that I knew Dr. Barr!” So of course I listened. It gave a good summary of the Owen Strachan and Beth Moore twitter event (if you missed it, see here and here). It was pretty critical of Strachan’s blogpost denouncing women preaching, “Divine Order in a Chaotic Age” (they really disliked... Read more

The (Lapsed) Presbyterian Piety of Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Last updated on: September 30, 2019 at 10:51 am By Chris Gehrz

While she drew on many other religious, philosophical, and literary sources for her post-Christian spirituality, Anne Morrow Lindbergh never entirely discarded her upbringing in the Protestant establishment. Read more

Nashville, NASHVILLE, and the Elephant in the Room

Last updated on: October 1, 2019 at 4:04 pm By Philip Jenkins

This post strays a bit from the main theme of the Anxious Bench in that I am not discussing religion, particularly, but I will focus on history, and specifically the means by which history is presented to a general mass audience. After all, such popular presentations are the way in which most people learn about history. When can and should such histories omit key parts of the story? What is too toxic even to mention? I am thinking of Ken... Read more

Fan Fiction and Alternative Gospels

Last updated on: September 26, 2019 at 7:52 am By Philip Jenkins

Wired magazine recently published an excellent essay that overtly said next to nothing about religion. Even so, it made me think about the vast range of alternative and apocryphal gospels written through two millennia, and how we read them. Among other things, it raises the intriguing question of when we refer to a work as apocryphal as opposed to a forgery, or even a novel. Where do we draw lines? The provocative Wired piece was titled “We Can Be Heroes:... Read more