It’s time for one of my favorite semesters for books! Every four semesters I teach what is probably my favorite class at Baylor, a graduate course entitled “Women, Gender, and Sex in American Religious History.” For one thing, it is the most fun thing to answer at a party when someone asks what you are teaching this semester. For another, I love thinking through these ideas with smart people for an entire afternoon once a week. I also enjoy the... Read more
In the 1976 presidential election, evangelicals across the political spectrum were determined to vote for the candidate who demonstrated the highest standard of integrity and the most exemplary character – not the candidate who shared their positions on policy issues. Four years earlier, more than 80 percent of white evangelical voters had cast their ballots for Richard Nixon, but after the Watergate scandal, many of them felt they had been duped. Across the spectrum, evangelicals insisted that they would... Read more
Last month, Harmeet Dhillon, an Indian American Republican leader and a devout Sikh, recited the Ardas, a Sikh prayer, during the benediction on the first night of the Republican National Convention. The backlash against Dhillon from fellow Republicans was swift and intense. On X, for example, Lauren Witzke, the 2020 Republican Senate candidate from Delaware, reposted Dhillon’s benediction and said, “How about you get deported instead, you pagan blasphemer. God saves our president and the RNC mocks him with... Read more
In a recent, already field-defining, essay in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, historian Matthew Avery Sutton offers a historiography of American evangelicalism. As he explains: In the 1980s, in response to the rise of the Religious Right, prominent religious historians occupying influential chairs and possessing access to institutional resources, cultivated a historical “consensus” that defined evangelicalism broadly, abstractly and optimistically, and created an unbroken lineage of both orthodoxy and orthopraxy throughout American history. However, Sutton argues, this... Read more
I have posted several items on the idea of empire as it applies to American history. Although a generation ago, even to speak of American empire was contentious and provocative, today it is an absolutely standard way of understanding national history from earliest times, and also – my particular interest – its religious history. But I should be more specific. Empires are by no means a one size fits all model, as they take various forms, and one of those... Read more
My conversation with historian Alex Mayfield about Pentecostalism in Hong Kong Read more
As teachers prepare for the approaching fall semester, questions surrounding artificial intelligence in the classroom are ramping up once again. Should we seek to integrate AI into assessments and assignments? How should we monitor its use? And how should we treat cases when students use AI on papers? While I have encountered numerous opinions about AI, both positive and negative, I must admit I have never been a fan of this technology in academic spaces—but I think there might be... Read more
“I still do the bulletin.” She was the wife of a retired small-town pastor. We stood next to the booth sponsored by her church, watching as volunteers served hot dogs to children and firefighters at the summer festival. “Our new preacher is good, but he isn’t married. I’ll do the bulletin until he gets a wife,” she said. My husband was standing close behind me. I heard a muffled sound of laughter as he turned and walked away. The... Read more
While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” –Luke 11:27-28 When the visiting priest from Nigeria read this Gospel passage on Wednesday night during the Vigil Mass for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, my children, standing beside me in... Read more
Sometimes you think you know a story very well, and then you come across a fact or a body of evidence that proves you have been wrong all along. Today’s blog concerns something called the Gallus Revolt, which has unsettled a number of my historical assumptions about both Jewish and Christian history in Late Antiquity. The immediate spark for this column is an important article by scholar Jacob Sivak, entitled “Forgotten Jewish Revolts Show Poor Historical Literacy In Jewish World.”... Read more
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