Guest blogger Noel Stringham reflects on what he has learned about Scripture, history, and peace from the Nuer people of South Sudan. Read more
Guest blogger Noel Stringham reflects on what he has learned about Scripture, history, and peace from the Nuer people of South Sudan. Read more
The children's religious book market is booming... so why are there so few good church histories and Christian biographies for those readers? Read more
[Recently, I gave a talk at Gordon College (where I formerly taught) on commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. The title of the talk was “500 Years of Protestantism. What Now?” I concluded with the material below on the challenge that this anniversary presents to evangelicals concerning the task of Christian unity–or ecumenism.] In a recent co-edited book, Protestantism after 500 Years, Mark Noll and I argued that, in light of the quincentennial of the Reformation, a phrase of... Read more
Last night’s Dr. Who episode, “Extremis,” presented some vicious media stereotypes of Catholicism… well, no, not really. In one scene, the Dr.’s companion Bill (female) is attempting to seduce Penny, a girl she has just met. She tries to explain that there is no reason for her friend to feel guilty about such sexual matters, or have issues with conscience, and is clearly making some impact. Unfortunately, the Doctor himself is in the middle of some transactions with the Pope,... Read more
In 1915, the Kansas City Star published a short religion column on the theme of “How the Idea of Immortality Developed” (January 17, 1915). The story was clearly aimed at a general audience, and made no pretensions to academic depth, yet ithe author’s main point was that “The whole doctrine of the future life as it is worked out in the New Testament is based on the religious teachings and insights of the writers of the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha... Read more
“Christian feminism” is an oxymoron. …and “secular feminism” is a tautology. Yes, there are certainly “secular feminists,” and there are some who are downright hostile to Christianity. But to consider Christianity and feminism as mutually exclusive obscures a long and vibrant history of Christian feminism. There are countless examples of Christian teachings and practices that have oppressed and marginalized women. But you can also find remarkable examples of women and men inspired by their Christian faith to counter oppressive assumptions... Read more
My husband recently noted in his facebook series on local church highlights in Waco, TX, (yes, we live–literally–in the middle of the Fixer Upper world) how modern protestants characterize the medieval church as keeping people from the Bible. I have talked about medieval views of the Bible on this blog several times, including Banning the Bible: Did it Really Happen in the Medieval Church? , The English Bible before the Reformation, and my last post The Top Ten Bible Verses in Medieval England. Just to... Read more
Are we at the end of one era in the history of evangelicalism and the beginning of another? Where is the field headed? Read more
Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1940s, many writers have tried to draw connections to Christian origins. Read more
As I remarked, the early twentieth century was a thrilling time for anyone interested in the Bible or early Christianity, and especially for “lost” alternative versions of the faith. New textual discoveries were appearing, and were having an enormous popular impact. much less well known is the strictly parallel developments that were occurring in the study of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible in exactly these years. And as in the case of alternative gospels, we might be startled to... Read more
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