A Very Not-So-Merry Christmas: How Protestantism Nearly Killed St. Nick

Last updated on: September 24, 2017 at 8:23 pm By David Swartz

Relics and indulgences weren’t the only casualties of the Reformation. So was Christmas. Christmas was an important feast and saint day in the centuries leading up to the Reformation. Its saint, Nicholas, the bishop of Myra in the early fourth century, loomed large in the Middle Age imagination. In fact, according to Gerry Bowler, Nicholas was the most powerful male saint on the church calendar. He was the patron saint of apothecaries, Austrians, bakers, barrel-makers, boatmen, Belgians, boot-blacks, brewers, brides,... Read more

Adventures in Parenting as a Historian: The American Girl Books

Last updated on: December 19, 2016 at 11:45 pm By Chris Gehrz

On seeing history through the eyes of a seven year old, as she reads American Girl books for the first time. Read more

The Most Influential Theologian You’ve Never Heard of

Last updated on: December 19, 2016 at 10:32 am By Thomas Albert Howard

Who is Josef Kleutgen (1811-1883)? The name is not a household name, except in my household! I’ve recently completed a book manuscript—The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age—and Kleutgen figures quite prominently in it. He was arguably the ablest student of Thomas Aquinas in the nineteenth century and the principal influence behind Dei Filius, a dogmatic constitution on the relationship between faith and reason, promulgated at Vatican I (1869-70). This... Read more

Because Xmas really is Xpian…

Last updated on: December 15, 2016 at 1:37 pm By Beth Allison Barr

This is from my Anxious Bench archives. I originally posted it December 2, 2015. But it seems still relevant and useful, so enjoy it for Xmas 2016 too. 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 “The Printer’s Church”... Read more

That REALLY Old Time Religion

Last updated on: December 15, 2016 at 6:52 pm By Philip Jenkins

Over the past few months, I have posted quite a few items on the subject of possible pagan survivals into medieval and even modern societies, as indeed has my Baylor colleague Beth Barr. I stand by everything I have written in those pieces – but I really have some questions that remain open. They are actually good questions to ask around the time of Christmas, and the Winter Solstice. My basic point here: with the best intentions in the world,... Read more

Dispelling Darkness: A Christian Paradox

Last updated on: December 20, 2016 at 2:13 pm By Kristin Du Mez

Tis the season. Christmas music is everywhere. I’m not a complete Grinch when it comes to Christmas music, but really… “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”? So much wrong with this… I do sing Rudolf and Frosty with my kids, and I actually enjoy listening to my daughter pound out carol after carol from her beginning piano Christmas book. I especially love hearing her exclaim over the beauty of traditional lyrics for the first time. As a historian, I suppose it makes... Read more

The Peace of Christmas during the Pain of Life

Last updated on: December 11, 2017 at 3:49 pm By Beth Allison Barr

In the far west of England, almost to Wales, the medieval spire of St. Alkmund’s parish church reaches high above the old city of Shrewsbury. One “vane” of A.E. Housman’s immortal line: “High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam islanded in Severn stream.” Although a modern town of 72,000, Shrewsbury still looks very medieval. More than 600 of its buildings are listed as sites of historic interest, and a significant number of these are 15th and 16th century–giving Shrewsbury its distinctive... Read more

A Very Nazi Christmas

Last updated on: December 12, 2016 at 10:54 pm By Chris Gehrz

Under National Socialism, Christmas in Germany featured a mix of de-Christianized traditions, neopagan rituals, and gendered stereotypes. Read more

Mel Brooks and Teaching European History

Last updated on: December 16, 2016 at 7:23 pm By Philip Jenkins

I dearly love Mel Brooks as a comedian, but I do have some quarrels with him as a historian. In explaining that remark, I’ll return to the point I made recently about teaching European history to Americans, and some of the basic and quite counter-intuitive ideas you need to get across at a very early stage. In the 1983 film To Be Or Not To Be, Mel Brooks plays a Polish vaudeville star in the months leading up to the... Read more

The Problems of Writing Biography (Part 3 – Evidence and Imagination)

Last updated on: December 10, 2016 at 2:33 am By Chris Gehrz

Why historians and biographers must often tell stories imaginatively, on the basis of relatively little evidence. Read more

Who prophesied the fall of Babylon?