Last time I posted about the New Testament passages describing the anointing of Jesus. Here, I will explore the implications for approaches to Scripture, literalist and otherwise. Each of the four gospels has a scene in which a woman uses costly oil to anoint Jesus, with the suggestion that this is in preparation for his imminent death and burial. The passages in question can be found at Mark 14.3-9 Matthew 26.6-13 Luke 7.36-50 John 12.1-8 This is one of the... Read more
Whatever its undoubted spiritual power, the Gospel of John is one of the most intriguing and sophisticated literary texts you are likely to encounter in any religious tradition. Although the text as we have it is the product of multiple layers of composition and editing, you can see so many literary devices and strategies that simply inspire awe, so many examples where a theme is introduced in one portion and amplified by being echoed elsewhere. I have elsewhere written about... Read more
How corporate evangelicals remade themselves in the Great Depression and after. Read more
I remember trick-or-treating when I was small. The night air was crisp and cool (we lived in the northwest at the time). My little sister was batman, my older sister a ballerina, and I a clown. My dad held our hands as we walked through the neighborhood, returning home only when our plastic pumpkins brimmed with candy. It was a fun night, especially since I didn’t realize until the next day that my little sister had eaten all my M&Ms….... Read more
A rare Anxious Bench parenting post: six things that Prof. Gehrz has learned about teaching history to his six-year old twins Read more
At one point in the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Trump was asked what he meant by a remark that Clinton did not have a presidential “look”. To be sure, it already is common knowledge that women’s looks are of interest to this candidate. Furthermore, nearly all elements of the possibility of a female president feel exhausted, overanalyzed, by now. Still, though Trump claimed to doubt Clinton’s “stamina” instead, concern over her “look”–face, hair, clothing, all the... Read more
I have been doing a series of posts about the global revival of religious politics during the mid-1970s. As part of this, I have offered a framework for what was happening at this time, suggesting why discontent being expressed in those traditional religious forms. Throughout, we must stress the effects of the 1973-75 economic crisis. At many points, Iran’s religious politics offer a surprisingly close analogy to the US pattern. One of the pivotal events of this era was the... Read more
Four years ago, I wrote a post on “God and the Presidential Debates” after the first round between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The substance of that post follows here, after a brief update. God, Christianity, and religion were almost entirely absent from this week’s first debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. I thought Clinton might work in a reference to her Methodist faith, about which I thought she spoke very effectively at the Democratic National Convention. I expected... Read more
After centuries of relying on sky-high Amish birthrates for church growth, Anabaptism has exploded in just several months. The surprising converts include a lot of conservative white evangelicals who are not known for their pacifism, simple living, or belief in the separation of church and state. Nonetheless, many are suddenly preaching the limits of partisan politics. There are many reasons why white evangelicals find this crop of candidates so unappealing. Those who identity with the Republican Party cite Clinton’s pro-choice... Read more
The history of the most iconic image of Jesus in American culture — and why it points to an imbalance in the religious influence we attribute to books vs. material culture. Read more
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