I have long valued Rick Perlstein as an excellent scholar of recent American history, chiefly working on the 1960s and 1970s. Based on his recent writings, I also see that he must be a superlative teacher. Please bear those comments in mind when I express some disagreement with him on the theme of counter-factual history, and how history might have developed in ways other than it did. This particularly applies to matters of race and slavery. Perlstein has a fine... Read more
I am presently preparing some courses that I will teach at Baylor on “Late Modern” US history, defined as the era since 1975 or so. As I have asked before in a different context, what are the broad themes that we would expect in that era? What are the most significant changes that have occurred in the US since, say, the mid-1970s? What, so to speak, are the megatrends? (Putting aside such symbolic incidentals as men’s hair length, smoking, and... Read more
Jane Dawson begins and ends her biography of John Knox with touching, familial scenes. The first is the 1557 baptism of Knox’s son Nathaniel in Geneva. Dawson writes that “Knox was standing beneath the pulpit proudly cradling his newborn son in his arms.” Knox stood next to his ministerial friend William Whittingham. A second friend, Christopher Goodman, baptized the baby. Knox, Whittingham, and Goodman had all helped write the service of baptism used that Sunday, part of a Forme of... Read more
What it's like to study the history of Islam as a Christian scholar? Bethel University professor Amy Poppinga shares her experience. Read more
“You have the best job.” So said an acquaintance at the Minnesota Historical Society earlier this month. Now, I happen to think that designing museum exhibits would be pretty cool, but I couldn’t argue. Not only did I have a sabbatical all fall, not only did I spend it with my wife, children, and parents, not only did it give us the chance to live in one beautiful part of the country and tour others, but… I’m going to spend the first three weeks of 2017 in Europe. (Note:... Read more
Welcome, new year! By the end of 2016 it had become a little too fashionable to express relief that that wretched year was over. But just turning a calendar page is cheap satisfaction, since lots of the trouble we carried in the previous year comes sloshing over into the new. Among those troubles, the trial of Charleston shooter Dylann Roof stretches on. Just before year’s end, Roof, convicted of killing nine people at Emanuel A.M.E Church in Charleston in June 2015, was ordered... Read more
Over the Christmas season, we naturally hear so much about Jesus’s mother, Mary, and in conversations, I am always a bit taken aback (not to mention amused) to find how many of the popular stories circulating her actually derive from ancient apocryphal sources. Sorry, no, she wasn’t a Temple Virgin, set aside for her special purity. What we can actually say with confidence about Mary is surprisingly limited, and most of what we do say is drawn from an unconscious... Read more
A truck plows into crowds at a Berlin Christmas market. Heart-wrenching images from Aleppo disquiet us on a daily basis. A young white man is convicted in the horrific killing of nine African American worshippers. The fourth anniversary of Sandy Hook comes and goes. Stories of police violence continue to surface. And in the midst of it all, our nation seems to be coming undone, fracturing along political lines that pit neighbor against neighbor, family against family. Despite the relative... Read more
This is a story of two pastors. The first was a vicar in the deanery of Salisbury, England, in 1412. His name was Alexander Champion. He was accused of abusing his ecclesiastical authority by sexually exploiting the women in his care. His parishioners claimed he had slept with five of their wives, that he fathered children with his concubine, and that he made sexual advances toward women when they came to him for confession. Clearly Champion had some serious problems... Read more
As is often the case with group blogs, change is a constant at The Anxious Bench. Just six months ago John announced that I was taking Tommy Kidd’s place, after which I got to tell you that Kristin and Tim would be sharing Thursdays with John. Now it’s my turn to pass along news of two more changes that you’ll notice in the New Year: First, Tim has decided to move on to other projects. If you missed any of his terrific posts on “corporate evangelicalism,” go back and read... Read more
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