What Athanasius Decided

Last updated on: January 8, 2018 at 2:34 pm By Philip Jenkins

The New York Times recently published a wonderful article entitled A Fragile Biblical Text Gets a Virtual Read, concerning the application of modern digital technology to reading an ancient Egyptian codex that includes the Book of Acts. The article itself is fascinating and informative, and the methodologies described are enormously promising. But I do have to quibble with its author, Nicholas Wade, for one remark. Wade writes in passing, “There was a profusion of gospels and other writings in the... Read more

Does the Truth Set You Free Or Just Make You Less Smart?

Last updated on: January 9, 2018 at 10:31 am By Agnes Howard

Alex Stone startled in a recent New York Times op-ed, “Is Your Child Lying to You? That’s Good.” Is he right? Read more

Grasped by Darkness

Last updated on: January 3, 2018 at 9:22 am By Philip Jenkins

The Christmas readings in our church featured the magnificent Prologue to John’s Gospel, about the Light, and how “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1.5 RSV, also NIV) or alternatively, “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (KJV). Overcome and comprehended – aren’t those radically different words? Is one wrong? Why do we have such different translations? Actually, both are correct in their way, and the process of determining... Read more

The First LDS Succession

Last updated on: January 5, 2018 at 8:26 am By johnturner

With the death of the LDS president, it's good to know how transitions of power work in Mormonism. Read more

Crusade University and the Intellectual Ambitions of Evangelicals

Last updated on: January 1, 2018 at 8:59 pm By David Swartz

The story of evangelicals' attempt to launch an Ivy League-quality research university in the 1950s Read more

The First Methodist President?

Last updated on: January 1, 2018 at 2:02 pm By Chris Gehrz

Chris considers the role of religion in the life of Ulysses S. Grant, the first U.S. president with strong connections to Methodism. Read more

On (Dante’s) Paradise

Last updated on: December 29, 2017 at 11:43 am By Thomas Albert Howard

Dorothy Sayers once quipped that attempting to grasp Dante’s Divine Comedy only from reading the Inferno would be like understanding Paris only through its sewer system. Unfortunately, if students are assigned any Dante in high school or college, it is usually the Inferno, possibly some bits of the Purgatorio, and rarely ever the Paradiso. This is a pity for Dante’s reserves some of his richest insights for the Paradiso, which I have taught for the first time in an upper-level,... Read more

Our Next War Debate

Last updated on: January 4, 2018 at 9:52 am By Philip Jenkins

My blogs normally address some kind of religious issue, and this one, strictly speaking, does not. What I do want to discuss, though, unquestionably has massive implications for ethics as much as politics. How exactly are we going to respond to the likely prospect of international crisis within the next couple of years, when that crisis stands an excellent chance of evolving into military conflict? How will we respond to the threat of war? How should we? Looking around the... Read more

The Anxious Bench Year in Review: 2017

Last updated on: December 27, 2017 at 5:21 pm By Chris Gehrz

From evangelicalism to Trump to #MeToo... the 25 most-read Anxious Bench posts of 2017 Read more

It is Time to Stop Using Paul Against Women: A New Year’s Resolution for Christians

Last updated on: December 26, 2017 at 11:30 pm By Beth Allison Barr

“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