Next week I will meet with our new Baylor History graduate students for orientation. I am pretty certain that no one will be late. I am also pretty certain that no one will fall asleep. This will be one of their first official graduate meetings, afterall, and they will want to make a good impression. But what about three weeks from now? Two months? Deadlines will be mounting; readings will seem impossible; and emotions will be running high. New challenges... Read more
One of the greatest writers of the Early Church, Ephrem the Syrian was a refugee whose laments offer a helpful model to this day Read more
In 1945, English villager Charles Walton was gruesomely murdered in what sensationalist media decided was a sinister “witch murder,” even a human sacrifice, in the community of Lower Quinton. That story, as described by detective Robert Fabian, became the foundation of a whole genre of fantastic fiction, Folk Horror, and this spilled over into the real world. The Walton story received something like canonical form on television in 1961 in an episode of Boris Karloff’s wonderful Thriller series, entitled Hayfork... Read more
I recently found myself on the fringes of an academic controversy. The Chronicle of Higher Education approached me to suggest books for a hypothetical “Trump Syllabus” that they were preparing, Trump 101. Together with many other academics, I duly contributed. The Syllabus itself was, though, bitterly criticized by some for its neglect of major aspects of what they felt to be the core elements of the Trump phenomenon, namely nativism, racism and xenophobia. The Chronicle duly issued a humble apology... Read more
Last time I described how rogue academics produced a mythology of continuing paganism and human sacrifice in supposedly Christian England, right up to modern times. The main rogue in question was an Egyptologist gone bad by the name of Margaret Murray. Supposedly, there was a continuing tradition of secret underground paganism linked to ancient cults and rituals, committing their misdeeds at the same sacred places, with a central element of human sacrifice. That folklore inspired the 1970s fictional genre of Folk... Read more
Whenever I’m in Salt Lake City, I like to stop at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. While at the cathedral last week, I noticed something that will no doubt be common knowledge to students of medieval Christianity but was new to me. In two paintings — on the central mural behind the altar and in one of the stations of the cross — is an image of a pelican with her young chicks. A pamphlet informs that the image symbolizes... Read more
During the Democratic National Convention, supporters of Bernie Sanders denounced the superdelegate system as rigged. For their part, some Republican Party elites sought to derail Donald Trump’s nomination by changing convention rules to release already-pledged superdelegates to vote against Trump. In the face of seemingly universal denunciations of the superdelegate system, it’s worth considering its history—and its fascinating intersection with 1970s religion. If you think the 2016 superdelegate process was rigged, then conventions in the 1960s and earlier were super-rigged.... Read more
Surveying the complicated history of Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the modern Olympics, whose founder meant them to represent "humanity's superior religion." Read more
Under current circumstances, praying people might puzzle over how to pray for leaders they do not much like. History affords a range of options, from requesting deliverance from evil rulers, to affirming allegiance to the powers that be whom God ordained, to giving thanks for just and prudent officials. Another provocative possibility comes from invocations of Congregationalist clergymen in America’s early national period. Facing the prospect of opening the nineteenth century with Thomas Jefferson at the helm, they expressed their... Read more
In a stunning statement, Wayne Grudem–Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary, former professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and co-founder of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood–pledged his wholehearted support of Donald Trump. “[M]y conscience, and my considered moral judgment tell me that I must vote for Donald Trump as the candidate who is most likely to do the most good for the United States of America.” Indeed, he showed us the glowing world that... Read more
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