In 1976, Elisabeth Elliot published her landmark book Let Me Be A Woman: Notes to My Daughter on the Meaning of Womanhood. If you remember, Elisabeth Elliot’s first husband Jim was one of five missionaries speared to death in Ecuador in 1956. Let Me Be A Woman was a gift to her daughter, Valerie–Elliot’s only child who was 10 months old when Jim Elliot died. In Let Me Be A Woman, Elliot draws a clear line in the sand. Women are different from men,... Read more
In 1973 anthropologist Stanley Diamond published a series of essays meant “as a modest antidote to the alienation, guilt, anxiety and fear to which human beings are condemned in modern imperial civilization.” Calling his book In Search of the Primitive, Diamond contended that The longing for a primitive mode of existence is no mere fantasy or sentimental whim; it is consonant with fundamental human needs, the fulfillment of which (although in different form) is a precondition for our survival… The... Read more
This coming week, we will enter the season of Lent. Thinking about the history of this time tells us a lot about the church’s changing attitudes to those very Biblical ideas of fasting and penance. To understand where this time came from, it’s helpful – oddly – to look first at Muslim practice. Muslims today have a month-long-season called Ramadan that looks quite ferocious to most Christians. Between the hours of dawn and dusk, Muslims can eat or drink absolutely... Read more
I wrote recently about the silly contemporary myth that portrays religion, and particularly Christianity, as implacably opposed to science and progress. In contrast, I emphasized the tradition of seeking “the Wisdom of God manifested in the works of Creation,” a phrase associated with the seventeenth century natural scientist John Ray. The legend of Christian obscurantism and ignorance is thoroughly disproved by an abundance of counter-examples, but some of the available correctives are so powerfully convincing that they startle. It is... Read more
Recently historians have been debating each other. Actually, this has been going on for quite some time. Max Boot observes the following in a Post op-ed: 1) History majors are declining; 2) Many Americans do not know when the War of 1812 began; 3) Americans elected Donald Trump, who does not know there was a War of 1812; 4) Historians bear some blame for these things because they have abandoned political and military history and because they fail to speak... Read more
In the nineteenth century, our white ancestors took Kanza land. What do we do about that now? Read more
Chris recommends five examples of a medium that helps connect historians to the larger public: podcasts. Read more
Jonathan Malesic‘s stunning reflection on life with the monks of New Mexico’s Monastery of Christ in the Desert crystallizes the problem of Americans and work. When Malesic goes out into the wilderness to spend a few days with the Benedictines, he knows he might encounter demons. He remembers that Desert Father and third-century monk St. Antony “said that if you go to the desert but don’t renounce all the things of this world, the demons will tear at your soul in... Read more
If you shine powerful flashlights into the more benighted corners of university humanities departments, you can probably find people who still believe that Christianity historically opposed scientific inquiry, and actually held back human progress. This myth found eloquent expression some years ago in a Family Guy episode in which Baby Stewie and Brian the dog visit a hyper-advanced technological civilization. This proves to be the alternate world that would have existed in our own time if Christianity had failed, and... Read more
This past week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Randal Maurice Jelks, Professor of American Studies and African and African American Studies at the University of Kansas, to discuss his new book Faith and Struggle in the Lives of Four African Americans: Ethel Waters, Mary Lou Williams, Eldridge Cleaver, and Muhammad Ali (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019). The book offers a fascinating look into the religious lives of four individuals, and Jelks also weaves his own religious narrative in and out... Read more
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