British historian Niall Ferguson recently published The Square and the Tower: Networks, Hierarchies and the Struggle for Global Power (Penguin), which has been getting a lot of attention. I am writing a full length review of the book, but right now, I want to focus on its implications for Christian history. The book draws on social network analysis. If you want to understand why somebody is important or significant in a particular era, Ferguson argues, it is very useful to... Read more
I have blogged repeatedly on various esoteric and occult themes, including Freemasonry and Theosophy, so hence my interest in this recent book, which I review here. My approach differs from that of other reviewers in that I stress what seems to me to be a critical American dimension of the book: Eric Kurlander, Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernatural History of the Third Reich (Yale University Press, 2017). 422 pages. In writing Hitler’s Monsters, Eric Kurlander has performed a valuable and indeed... Read more
From the moment Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the presidency, I have deeply disliked his anti-immigrant rhetoric. While I disagree with some of Trump’s actual policy positions (to the best I can discern them) on immigration, on many issues Christians might very reasonably disagree. Do porous borders lead to gangs smuggling unaccompanied minors into the United States? Do high levels of immigration depress wages in the United States and strain city and state budgets? And so forth. There is no... Read more
Why Crusade University never got off the ground Read more
We are so pleased to welcome back John Wigger to the Anxious Bench. John Wigger is Professor of History at the University of Missouri and author of PTL: The Rise and Fall of the Evangelical Empire of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. #MeToo #ChurchToo In 1980 Jessica Hahn was sexually assaulted by one of the most prominent preachers in America. Her experience reveals why our current dialogue about powerful men and the reluctance of survivors to come forward applies just... Read more
Every time I come to work at Bethel University, I pass a display that includes two quotations from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Not surprisingly, the first is a familiar phrase from King’s iconic “I Have a Dream Speech.” Just as predictably, the second does not come from King the opponent of the war in Vietnam, King the supporter of labor unions, or King the advocate of reparations to African Americans. In that sense, the Bethel display illustrates Ed Gilbreath’s point that... Read more
In my teenage years, I operated on the assumption that real life was a crutch for those without the nerve to face science fiction. Some of those science fiction books and stories remain with me as very powerful influences and memories, and fifty years on, I am still not fully recovered from seeing Kubrick’s towering film of 2001. The cutting-edge British magazine New Worlds was for several years in the late 1960s my literary Bible, and it served as a... Read more
On the Anxious Bench we’ve been discussing the continuing need for Christian scholarship, and the distribution challenges Christian scholars face. Today’s guest is John Hwang, founder and CEO of Lanio, a company whose mission it is to develop and promote nonprofit organizations and amplify the work of thought leaders. In that capacity, John has done a lot of thinking about the role that institutions and Christian scholars can play in promoting Christian scholarship. He brings to the Anxious Bench a... Read more
This summer I went to the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery in London for the first time. I know, as many times as I have been to London, it is shameful that this is the first time I went. I went to see Shakespeare, of course, and all the wives of Henry VIII in the National Portrait Gallery. But before wandering down the aisle of Tudor faces, I stopped first into the National Gallery and visited a Rembrandt exhibit.... Read more
When did Christian worship services start to include a brief children's sermon? Chris does some digging... Read more
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