Beyond Chrismukkah: An Interview with Samira Mehta

Last updated on: December 13, 2018 at 11:58 am By Melissa Borja

It’s December, the month for feasting on latkes and Buche de Noel, lighting menorahs and Advent wreaths, and singing “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel” and “Deck the Halls.” For interfaith Christian-Jewish families, though, the merry-making can be unusually complicated. Which holidays do they celebrate? Which traditions do they observe? And how do decisions about Christmas and Hanukkah relate to broader questions about identity, belief, practice, and pluralism? To understand how interfaith families have handled these issues, I interviewed Dr.... Read more

A Tale of Two Mennonite Pastors: Siblings, Gender, and How to Disagree

Last updated on: December 12, 2018 at 2:03 am By Beth Allison Barr

Today we welcome Regina Wenger to the Anxious Bench. Regina is a doctoral student in the Baylor History department, currently studying with Barry Hankins and Elesha Coffman. This post was born in her seminar paper for my graduate course, and I asked her to share it with our readers. I want to share the story of two siblings: George R. Brunk II and Ruth Brunk Stoltzfus. They were a brother and a sister whose lives paralleled each other, but whose... Read more

The Past As It Should Have Happened

Last updated on: December 10, 2018 at 7:07 pm By Chris Gehrz

Historians often say that they study the past "as it actually happened." But they can't help but think about the past "as it should have happened." Read more

After the Missions Closed

Last updated on: December 9, 2018 at 7:41 am By Philip Jenkins

The Washington Post recently ran a story with stunning implications for the history of Christian missions. The story suggests that such missions could have very positive “ghost” effects in the long term, even many years after they had officially ended. Journalist Andrew van Dann reported a scholarly analysis of the long term impacts of the Jesuit missions in the land of the Guarani people in what is today the nations of Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. These missions – the Reductions,... Read more

Pearl Harbor and the Lost Poet

Last updated on: December 6, 2018 at 10:42 am By Philip Jenkins

On the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I am thinking about a writer whose reputation has gone through astonishing shifts through the years, in large part because of the events of that December 7. For much of the early and mid-twentieth century, Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) had a stunning reputation. When Edward Abbey quoted Jeffers, he wouldn’t bother to name him, but he just called him The Poet, and literate people knew who he meant. Jeffers was the favorite poet of Charles... Read more

The Bushes and the Religious Right

Last updated on: December 5, 2018 at 11:08 pm By johnturner

At this fleeting moment of civil (in two senses of the word) religion while Americans mourn and mark the death of President George H. W. Bush, the bitterness politics has had a brief pause. That alone is good reason for the pageantry. The first President Bush was the first candidate I voted for, back in 1992, the first of many times my preferred candidate did not win the Oval Office. I cannot remember why I voted for him, though I... Read more

The Amish Farmer and the Pietist Prince

Last updated on: December 4, 2018 at 9:49 pm By David Swartz

Wrestling with my Anabaptist heritage during a recent trip to Germany Read more

Advent: The Most Apocalyptic Time of the Year

Last updated on: December 5, 2022 at 12:29 pm By Chris Gehrz

Reading a new collection of sermons by Fleming Rutledge got Chris thinking about the implications of Advent for the practice of history. Read more

Bleak Days for a Chosen People

Last updated on: December 2, 2018 at 9:11 am By Agnes Howard

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, Thomas Jefferson famously opined in his Notes on the State of Virginia, adding, in what sounds like a snarky aside, “if ever he had a chosen people.” Jefferson maintained that God made the breasts of farmers “his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.” Champion of religious liberty and religious minorities, Jefferson in these words was making clear that, whether or not a Supreme Being was the source of farmers’... Read more

First and Second Comings

Last updated on: November 23, 2018 at 12:39 pm By Philip Jenkins

The season of Advent begins this year on Sunday, December 2. I am adapting here a column I originally posted at this site several years ago. Advent is one of my favorite times in the church year. For many reasons, I relish the “O Antiphons,” which belong precisely to this season. They are so rich in the lessons they teach, with implications for Christmas, of course, but also for the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, and (surprisingly perhaps)... Read more

How did Jesus heal the mute and deaf man in Decapolis?