Religion or Ethnicity 3 – Untangling Critical Race Theory

Last updated on: April 6, 2025 at 11:57 pm By Paul Thompson

In my February I talked about Untangling Critical Race Theory: What Christians Need to Know and Why it Matters by Ed Uszynski. In this post I want to continue reflecting on some of the gems in this very significant book that he says he wrote primarily to white evangelicals. Untangling chronologically walks the reader through the rise of Marxism, critical theory, and finally Critical Race Theory (CRT). For each, Uszynski explains the historical context, the issues they were addressing, and... Read more

Lent and Why We Still Meet God in the Wilderness

Last updated on: April 4, 2025 at 12:00 pm By Lisa Clark Diller

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It’s Lent: Let’s Go to the Wilderness Budget cuts in the US government have resulted in more folks paying attention to the National Parks recently. While arguments over which branches of government are more or less vital or efficient, my own conversations seem to reveal that the National Parks have bipartisan support. The importance of having swaths of land preserved from development and preserved for citizens to enjoy holds wide appeal. It seems a truism that we need wilderness areas... Read more

Three Temptations, and Three Triumphs

Last updated on: March 31, 2025 at 8:07 am By Philip Jenkins

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Today’s blog is a slightly expanded reprint of a post I did at this site a couple of years ago. The post seems so suitable for the Lenten season. In 2023, I published the book He Will Save You from the Deadly Pestilence: The Many Lives of Psalm 91. Many things make that psalm highly distinctive among Biblical passages, not least the fact that it alone, among scriptural texts, is quoted by Satan himself. But Satan makes an odd mistake,... Read more

Is Christian Education Meant to Protect or Expand?

Last updated on: April 1, 2025 at 10:47 am By Lynneth Renberg

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In Support of Expansive Education I saw a debate play out in the comments of a friend from college’s social media post the other week. It’s probably a scenario we’re all familiar with: someone posts a picture or an article, often a fairly innocuous one, that touches on a subject people have strong opinions on. And then the comments section goes wild; a commenter accuses the original poster of walking away from “true Christian faith,” and then the proof-texting with... Read more

Popes, Prophecies, and the Apocalypse

Last updated on: March 27, 2025 at 3:54 pm By Philip Jenkins

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We are running out of prophecies. Let me explain. I have been writing about what seems to be the near-future likelihood of a Papal conclave, and the choice of a new Pope. For centuries, the assembled Fathers have made their choice through a mix of power politics and exalted visions, but remarkably often, at least into the present century, someone present has imported a mystical theme, in the form of a seductive prophecy, and that is about to expire. I... Read more

Retethering Ourselves: A Review of Priests of History

Last updated on: March 26, 2025 at 2:29 pm By Guest Contributor

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You know you are reading a good book when you wish you had read it already. I wish that I had read Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age a year ago. Last fall, while co-teaching an interdisciplinary course at Baylor, I confess that I struggled to articulate why exactly my students should care about history beyond its provision of context for interpreting ideas. Guiding students through our readings from Plato, Nietzsche, McIntyre, and Haidt, I knew... Read more

President Garfield: A Moral Reassessment

Last updated on: March 24, 2025 at 9:53 pm By Daniel K. Williams

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Reflections on C. W. Goodyear’s President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier (Simon and Schuster, 2023) Of all the presidents, James A. Garfield probably held the greatest religious interest for people in my own church circle when I was growing up. To anyone outside of the Stone-Campbell Restorationist movement, that may seem a surprising statement. Garfield’s presidency lasted only six months, since he was assassinated shortly after taking office. During that time, he accomplished almost nothing other than appointing people to his... Read more

Evangelicals, Charismatics, and Reformation Roleplay, Part 2

Last updated on: March 21, 2025 at 3:08 pm By Jacob Randolph

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In my last post, I charted the acceptance and gradual ostracizing of Pentecostals and charismatics within neoevangelical spaces. Neoevangelicalism, as the baby of confessional Presbyterians, Lutherans, and, later, Baptists, wanted to claim exclusive rights to Christian orthodoxy by emphasizing biblical inerrancy while simultaneously downplaying denominational distinctives. While Pentecostals were invited into the evangelical project in the 1940s, over the course of a half-century neoevangelical leaders grew wary of charismatics after the explosion of second-wave charismaticism, which spread primarily in mainline... Read more

Who Will Be The Next Pope?

Last updated on: April 21, 2025 at 6:34 pm By Philip Jenkins

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Before too long, we are very likely to be dealing with the choice of a new Pope, when Francis either leaves this world, or else resigns. Yes, I know I am addressing an audience of experts in such matters, all of whom have seen Conclave at least once. Even so, I hope I have something of value to add in terms of the current candidates, and the future outlook for the Vatican in general. And I will confidently predict the... Read more

How More Religion Could Help Us Sleep Better

Last updated on: March 20, 2025 at 11:21 am By David Swartz

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Until a century and a half or so ago, our premodern forbears didn’t sleep in one long stretch. If you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t watch television or scroll on your phone. Do what the premoderns did. Embrace your partner. Read. And pray. Read more