In Search of Crypto-Jews, Again

Last updated on: December 28, 2018 at 7:51 am By Philip Jenkins

The Atlantic just published a potentially important piece called “The Genetic Legacy of the Spanish Inquisition” by Sarah Zhang. I am not saying outright that the article (and the research it reports) are wrong. But I think I see gaping holes in the evidence, at least as it was presented. Among other things, this suggests some issues in applying genetics to the study of history. Some years ago, researchers claimed to find evidence of “crypto-Jews” in the Americas, most conspicuously... Read more

2018: The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Evangelicalism

Last updated on: December 27, 2018 at 11:27 am By Chris Gehrz

Reviewing our most popular posts of 2018, Chris found one topic popping up again and again: evangelicalism. Read more

Disrupting Our Nativity: Two Medieval Differences

Last updated on: December 26, 2018 at 2:21 am By Beth Allison Barr

I love nativities. Every Thanksgiving my mother gives me a new nativity set to display. She gets them from the local Fair Trade store, so we now have scenes crafted by artisans in Kenya, Indonesia, Haiti, Guatemala, Vietnam, Peru, Nicagarua, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, as well as the United States. The clean lines and naked beauty of the carved African soapstone contrasts with the vivid fabric colors from Peru. I especially love the set from India; it includes the wives of... Read more

The Mysterious Project of Putting Christ Back in Christmas

Last updated on: December 24, 2018 at 11:51 pm By Kristin Du Mez

“In a culture dominated by sharp opinions, admitting uncertainty comes at a cost.” So concludes Jonathan Merritt, in his Atlantic story on Christian musician Lauren Daigle. Daigle had come under fire from fellow Christians after expressing uncertainty on whether “homosexuality was sinful.” “I can’t honestly answer on that,” Daigle admitted. “I can’t say one way or the other. I’m not God.” As Merritt describes, Daigle’s response didn’t play well among some evangelicals: When the clip of her interview was posted... Read more

The Great War’s Christmas Memorial

Last updated on: December 24, 2018 at 2:04 pm By Chris Gehrz

Why Chris' favorite World War I memorial is the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols held every Christmas Eve at King's College, Cambridge. Read more

Christmas and Epiphany, Birth and Baptism

Last updated on: December 21, 2018 at 2:13 pm By Philip Jenkins

What follows is adapted from a blogpost of mine at this site some years back. The earliest Christian communities varied substantially in their ideas about the birth of Christ. Here, I want to explore the implications of that fact for our understandings of the Christmas celebration. Let me begin with a familiar enough observation. Not until half a century after the Crucifixion can we find any recorded evidence of stories concerning Jesus’s birth, nor any reference to Bethlehem in that... Read more

Of Black Swans and GUBUs

Last updated on: December 22, 2018 at 6:54 am By Philip Jenkins

I have posted here before about issues of predicting the future, specifically in religious matters. Based on what I have been doing in my current book project on the US in the 21st century, I offer a couple of new concepts to add to that discussion. As I have argued previously, predictions of America’s near-future have a very mixed record of accuracy, although some seemingly wild prophecies have turned out far more accurately than their authors dared believe. As early... Read more

Who Defines Evangelicalism?

Last updated on: December 21, 2018 at 3:58 pm By johnturner

I am not among the Twitterati, so this post is rather far outside of my field of expertise. But when former contributors and blogmeisters of The Anxious Bench face criticism and get swept up in controversy, one has a certain responsibility not to shrink from the field of, er, bloggle. Last week, Jonathan Merritt took issue with a post written by Thomas Kidd, our founder who later apostatized left for The Gospel Coalition. Kidd wrote about Phillis Wheatley, an eighteenth-century... Read more

A Very Not-So-Merry Christmas: How Protestantism Nearly Killed St. Nick

Last updated on: December 18, 2018 at 8:37 am By David Swartz

We all give thanks that the excesses of the Reformation didn’t kill Christmas in the end. Read more

They Shall Not Grow Old: WWI According to Peter Jackson

Last updated on: December 18, 2018 at 8:49 am By Chris Gehrz

Chris reviews the stunning new World War I documentary by Peter Jackson, a filmmaker better known for battle scenes involving orcs and elves. Read more