I submitted eight letters of recommendation this morning. I submitted three over the weekend, and have about eight more to submit by November 15. Writing student recommendations for graduate school, for grants and fellowships, and for jobs is part of my job as a tenured professor. It is a great deal of work. But it is work I am very happy to do. I have my PhD (which I am so thankful to have earned) and my job (which I... Read more
If time is a dimension of Creation, then what would it look like for Christians to be stewards of the past? Some All Saints' Day reflections from Chris Gehrz. Read more
In 2017, we are going to be hearing a great deal about the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Rather lost in this coverage, though, might be the exceeding slow pace with which Reformation ideas actually permeated many parts of Europe, even those within notionally Protestant states. To illustrate this, I will here tell the story of one of the most successful ventures in popular evangelism in Protestant history – a story that, moreover, has many resonances for anyone interested in... Read more
I love Halloween, and I love horror fiction. One of the most powerful and evocative contributions to both areas is a lengthy poem that is now regarded as one of the greatest exemplars of modern poetry in the British Isles. As we approach Halloween, it amply repays your attention. The poem is the Ballad of the Mari Lwyd, published in 1941 by Wales’s Vernon Watkins (1906-67). The Ballad takes as its subject a startling ritual that long prevailed in Welsh... Read more
Along with several of my co-bloggers, last week I was at the Conference on Faith and History. It’s one of a select number of academic conferences that brims with passion. Attendees go the panels, listen to presentations, and talk about them. All great fun. Jay Green, the CFH’s incoming president, spoke on Friday night on “Evangelical Historiography, Evangelical Identity, and the Spiritual Vision of History.” [Jay is the author of Christian Historiography: Five Rival Visions]. I won’t recapitulate the entire... Read more
2016 would appear to be the perfect moment to launch a revitalized evangelical left. Donald Trump, the most secular candidate in American history, has a special talent for violating standards of Christian virtue on issues ranging from sexual fidelity to welcoming the immigrant stranger. Many observers predict the fragmentation of an old religious right. Most evangelical leaders have quit defending Trump. Fewer rank-and-file evangelicals feel compelled to vote Republican out of identity politics, at least not if Trump headlines the... Read more
Next week we’ll mark the 499th anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 Theses, taking us right up to the verge of a quincentenary that has already inspired a great deal of reflection on the historical and contemporary significance of the Protestant Reformation. Embed from Getty Images Tal’s the expert here, but not all Protestants make meaning of the Reformation in the same way. Dale Coulter, for example, wrote recently for First Thoughts about how Wesleyans understand its legacy. So I thought I’d share how Protestants in my branch of that... Read more
This continues some posts I have been doing concerning John’s Gospel. The Bible contains several stories of holy men and patriarchs encountering women at wells. The wonderful example in the New Testament tells how Jesus met the Samaritan woman at “Jacob’s well,” where they engaged in some sharp dialogue and some dazzling theological discussions. Undoubtedly, the reader is meant to hear echoes of those Old Testament precedents, but just possibly, Jacob is not the example the author has in mind.... Read more
Race, gender, identity... and Donald Trump. Revisiting the 2016 meeting of the Conference on Faith and History - the first to be displaced by a presidential campaign rally! Read more
I have been posting on the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man, as told in Luke’s chapter 16, and puzzling out its possible relationship to the miracle of Lazarus in the Gospel of John. Here, I will pursue that question by citing another curious source, namely the Epistle of James. James was for centuries something of an orphan in New Testament criticism, partly because Reformers like Luther took such a dim view of it. In recent decades, it has... Read more
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