From evangelicalism to Trump to #MeToo... the 25 most-read Anxious Bench posts of 2017 Read more
From evangelicalism to Trump to #MeToo... the 25 most-read Anxious Bench posts of 2017 Read more
“I hate Paul.” I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that from female undergraduates. Young women scarred by how many times passages from the Pauline epistles have been used against them: women be silent (1 Corinthians 14), wives submit to your husbands (Ephesians 5), women cannot teach or exercise authority over men (1 Timothy 2). Christian women, according to conservative “evangelicals”* (as the news media keeps labeling them), are designed to follow their husband’s lead and focus... Read more
Why the second day of Christmas is a good moment to contemplate a topic New Testament authors mostly avoid: the childhood of Jesus. Read more
Christmas is at once a feast of Creation and Incarnation, as the two stories are so intimately integrated in the Prologue to John’s Gospel. On Christmas Day, then, it seems appropriate to quote one of the great poems about the Creation, but this particular one has a special story attached to it. Not only is this a truly ancient poem, dating back some 1400 years, but it is regarded as one of the first literary works in the English language,... Read more
Yes, there is another son of God in the gospels. Read more
There’s a reason why Hollywood loves to caricature evangelists as money-grubbing, secretly sex-crazed hypocrites. It’s because some famous evangelists have played true to type. Read more
How evangelicals abet a culture of masculine aggression Read more
Still trying to find a Christmas gift for the history buff in your life? Chris suggests some books... Read more
The Florentine landmark Le Murate, on Via Ghibellina near where the Ponte alla Grazie crosses the Arno, boasts office and gallery space, a snazzy exhibition venue, a coffee shop, and apartments, a complex designed by Renzo Piano. It is counted among the finer examples of premodern buildings renewed, a preservation that not only saves an antique structure but makes it fresh, vibrant, useful to residents and visitors alike. It used to house a couple hundred nuns. The convent of Santa... Read more
I have blogged a lot on themes of paganism, “folk horror,” and witchcraft, so this particular post follows naturally. This is my review of one of this past year’s really impressive books. Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present (Yale University Press, 2017). 360 pages + xv. Ronald Hutton’s The Witch is a fine book in its own right, insightful and thoroughly researched. It gains greatly in value when understood as part of... Read more
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