I must begin this post with a confession. The first thing I often do when I wake up is read the politics section of the New York Times. I should begin each morning by smiling gratefully at the dawn sky and thanking the heavens for another blessed day to live. Instead, I’m usually hidden under my down comforter, the only light in the room emanating from my smartphone screen, which I anxiously scroll to find new election forecasts and political... Read more
Last week I finally got around to listening to a podcast episode I had saved sometime in the past year. Obviously, I’m not a huge podcast devotee. But it was totally worth the wait. This podcast interviewed married evangelical Anglican co-priests Jonathan and Tish Harrison Warren on how and why they had come to support women’s ordination. They had earlier opposed it, having both grown up in the Southern Baptist Church and later joined the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA),... Read more
Today we welcome Paul Gutacker (M.A. and Th.M. Regent College; Ph.D. Baylor University) to the Anxious Bench. Paul’s research focuses on religion and historical memory, particularly nineteenth-century American Protestants’ memory of the Christian past. In addition to teaching at Baylor, Paul and his wife Paige direct Brazos Fellows, a post-college fellowship centered on theological study, spiritual disciplines, and vocational discernment. They enjoy life in East Waco with their son James, daughter Marianne, and spaniel Lila. A few months ago, I sat in... Read more
Jason Colavito spends his time demolishing pseudo-science and bogus archaeology (ancient aliens, giants, Nephilim, lost Atlantis, etc). He has a very readable blog, and also publishes entertaining books that are of special interest for anyone interested in the sizable overlap between esoteric movements, fringe religion, and pseudo-science. His latest is The Mound Builder Myth: Fake History and the Hunt for a “Lost White Race” (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020). To cut a very long story short, white settlers in the... Read more
Normally what I post here includes some kind of original research or (ideally) fresh insight from me. This one doesn’t. I am just drawing attention to a really interesting essay that might well escape the attention of ANXIOUS BENCH readers because of the source, namely Wired magazine, which would freely admit that it is as secular as the high tech industries and cultures on which it reports. It should resonate with the interests of many readers here, especially for its... Read more
There are many ways to assess works of history. Does a book make a strong argument? Is the information accurate? Is the book coherent? And then, more basically, is it a pleasure to read? In that vein, is it characterized by eloquent prose, character portraits, quirkiness, and a dash of humor? Tom Holland’s Dominion is a remarkable book. There are many histories of Christianity. Diarmaid MacCulloch’s terribly titled Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years is among the best in its... Read more
When a moment of women’s empowerment reasserts sexual norms in the end Read more
College closures have long been part of the story of American higher education. But recent announcements about several Christian institutions of higher learning have Chris wondering if religious colleges are at increased risk of closing. Read more
To think well and wisely about tradition, there are, to be sure, many sources. One might begin with T. S. Eliot’s famous essay, “Tradition and Individual Talent,” and then take on Jaroslav Pelikan’s book, The Vindication of Tradition, in which he makes the crucial distinction between traditionalism (the dead faith of the living) and tradition (the living faith of the dead). After Eliot and Pelikan, one might head toward Yves Congar’s The Meaning of Tradition before dipping into Josef Pieper’s... Read more
I have blogged quite a lot about the relationship between demographics – specifically, fertility rates – and trends in religion. Roughly, low fertility corresponds to low or declining religiosity, while high fertility societies tend to be actively religious. (See those earlier blogs for a lengthy discussion of the processes at work). It is thus a matter of great moment when, just in the past few years, the United States has moved decisively to become a European-style low fertility society, with... Read more
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