Christian Scholarship, For Such a Time as This

Last updated on: November 16, 2017 at 2:32 pm By Kristin Du Mez

I’ve got to be honest. There was a time, not long ago, when I had become weary of conversations about “Christian scholarship.” These conversations, it seemed to me, had become stale, and sometimes took the place of actually doing scholarship, Christian or otherwise. Recently, however, I’ve found myself reconsidering the idea of Christian scholarship. I’m not entirely sure what’s changed. Perhaps I’m just older (yes) and wiser (maybe). Or perhaps our historical moment demands that we ask old questions in... Read more

A Serious Proposal for Academic Conferences: Ban Harvey Weinsteins

Last updated on: November 15, 2017 at 3:44 pm By Beth Allison Barr

It was during a major academic conference. A male colleague alerted me that a female graduate student had left the reception early. A fellow conference attendee had cornered her and began making sexually inappropriate advances—both physical and verbal. Luckily one of her male friends realized what was happening and intervened so that she could escape. When I checked on the graduate student to see if she was okay, her response saddened me. “Oh yes- that,” she said, “I’m fine…Not the first... Read more

Seeking Truth in a World “With Devils Filled”

Last updated on: November 13, 2017 at 11:10 pm By Chris Gehrz

Chris ponders the intersection of higher education with a topic to which he rarely gives much thought: spiritual warfare. Read more

Inventing the Christian Priesthood

Last updated on: November 11, 2017 at 11:48 am By Philip Jenkins

I’ve been discussing the Christian church at an early stage in its development, around 200 AD. This is definitely the “early church,” long before the Council of Nicea, and the kind of precedents we find there should presumably be relevant to later generations of Christians, including Protestants. That’s important because early Fathers from this time, such as Tertullian, show how commonly the church then talked not only about a distinct class of clergy, but even referred to them as priests.... Read more

4 Memorials for Remembrance Day

Last updated on: November 11, 2017 at 1:11 pm By Chris Gehrz

In honor of what most of the English-speaking world observes as Remembrance Day, Chris shares four especially memorable World War I memorials. Read more

Inventing The Clergy

Last updated on: November 3, 2017 at 7:43 am By Philip Jenkins

I have been working on the early church, mainly the era of Tertullian, around 200 AD. What you find in that era has many implications for later debates about the church, and especially at a time when we are talking so much about commemorating the Reformation. For Christians, the question of what the church actually did and thought in that very early era has always been a matter of significance. To varying degrees, Christians of all shades and traditions have... Read more

Praying in the Wake of Affliction

Last updated on: November 8, 2017 at 4:32 pm By johnturner

In 1687, a measles epidemic swept away many of Boston’s children. Cotton Mather preached on the subject on Christmas that year, delivering an afternoon sermon titled upon publication Right Thoughts in Sad Moments. Mather’s message was standard puritan fare. God gives, and God takes away. Ultimately, God uses such afflictions for the benefit of his creation, sometimes to punish sin, always to remind us of our mortality and bring us to a more intimate knowledge of his Son and his... Read more