Reinventing Christianity After Rome

Last updated on: December 14, 2017 at 9:45 am By Philip Jenkins

I have been posting about the collapse of Roman society in Britain in the fifth century AD, and the rise of what we often call “Dark Age” societies – impoverished, war-torn, deurbanized, depopulated. In Christian history, this change is so important because of the accompanying revolution in religious structures, the evaporation of the old Roman dioceses and hierarchies, and the emergence of new tribal kingdoms and warlord statelets. It is out of that new reality that we see the growth... Read more

Infidels, Demons, Witches, and Quakers

Last updated on: December 26, 2017 at 8:27 am By Philip Jenkins

I have an article out in the new issue of Fides et Historia, under the ambitious title of “Infidels, Demons, Witches and Quakers: The Affair of Colonel Bowen” (vol. 49(2)(2017): 1-15). You can read the whole article of course, but I just want to summarize it here and suggest some of the reasons the topic so appealed to me. The core story tells us a lot about the directions that Anglo-American Puritanism traveled in its first decades. It also offers... Read more

Thomas Hooker and the Terror of God

Last updated on: December 12, 2017 at 8:09 am By johnturner

Thomas Hooker frequently compared the relationship between God and human beings to a king who has discovered traitors plotting against him. What would the king do? He would torture them. Read more

When Evangelicals Campaigned for Family Values

Last updated on: December 8, 2017 at 9:49 am By David Swartz

On the campaign against loose morals in the 1920s and how contemporary support for Roy Moore and Donald Trump show just how political the term "evangelical" has become Read more

Can Christian Scholarship Thrive in Christian Colleges?

Last updated on: December 5, 2017 at 8:32 am By Chris Gehrz

I’ve often said that I try to approach blogging as “thinking in public.” But this post, I’m afraid, will be more like me having a bad dream in public. The dream starts peacefully enough, with a person who loves what he does. That’s me. As a history professor at a Christian university, I get to teach a wide array of courses with a diverse group of students who are generally serious, hard-working, and earnest. But it gets better: my best friends in... Read more

Death of a Business

Last updated on: December 4, 2017 at 11:01 am By Thomas Albert Howard

After World War II America’s economy roared to life. Wartime energies found themselves redirected to fuel a boom time in the nation’s history. In 1949 my grandfather opened a business in Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Business Supply Company, a business for businesses as it were, selling office products, printing, and more. My father took it over in the 1960s. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I knew it simply as “the store.” It will close its doors on December 31. My... Read more

Divination – A Most Neglected Most Important Element of Religion

Last updated on: November 26, 2017 at 9:05 am By Philip Jenkins

Now this is a treat! I was recently corresponding with the excellent English scholar of religion Linda Woodhead, who made some very interesting comments about the importance of divination as a badly under-studied theme within religion – in fact, within all religions. At my request, she put together a summary of her views, and it is a privilege to include her guest contribution to the blog. As you see, she ranges widely in the examples she offers. Reading her observations... Read more

Christian Scholarship’s Distribution Problem

Last updated on: November 30, 2017 at 12:49 pm By Kristin Du Mez

Today’s guest post comes from Raully Donahue. Donahue took a PhD in European history from Notre Dame into upper Michigan to raise three boys. Now that the boys are grown, he is trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. Here he shares his observations on Christian scholarship and the Christian public. One of my standard conversation openers at parties is to ask this question: “Why is C. S. Lewis one of the most revered... Read more

Because Xmas really is Xpian…

Last updated on: November 29, 2017 at 12:39 am By Beth Allison Barr

This is from my Anxious Bench archives. It is still one of my favorites, even though I wrote it two years ago. Stay tuned for my next post on more Xmas traditions. I literally stumbled across St. Bride’s church in London this summer. Walking down Fleet Street toward St. Paul’s Cathedral, I was considering eating at Ye Olde Chesire Cheese when I looked up and saw the wedding cake spire designed by Christopher Wren. It wasn’t until I saw the sign... Read more

Do Evangelicals Share a Common Story?

Last updated on: November 29, 2017 at 11:11 am By Chris Gehrz

Is evangelical identity based on a shared story, a religious version of a national narrative? Read more

What did Jesus do for Jairus' daughter?