Heads up on key new books in American and global religious history

Last updated on: October 8, 2015 at 1:53 pm By Thomas Kidd

Over at the Christian Century, Philip Jenkins and Grant Wacker offer suggestions for some key new books on American and global religious history. One of the most tantalizing, co-edited by my friends Perry Glanzer and Joel Carpenter, is Christian Higher Education: A Global Reconnaisance, which seeks to give a global map of the recent development of Christian higher education. The growth of Christianity in the Global South has seen parallel developments in the world of Christian colleges and seminaries. Another intriguing title is... Read more

Noah’s Magic

Last updated on: October 2, 2015 at 5:22 am By Philip Jenkins

I have been writing about the semi-lost Book of Noah, parts of which survive in the Book of 1 Enoch. In trying to understand its role and origins, I would stress its practical role as a valuable textbook for those seeking protection against evil forces. Much of Noah seems designed for a community deeply interested in different forms of protective magic, and security against demonic forces. Apotropaic magic is the kind of magic used to ward off evil forces, and... Read more

Playing Mormon, Playing Indian

Last updated on: October 7, 2015 at 1:30 pm By johnturner

In 1869, Lucy Stanton Bassett traveled from New York to Utah, possibly riding on the transcontinental railroad completed that May. When she reached Utah, she was reunited with her parents and children, and she met her grandchildren. For tens of thousands of Americans and Europeans, the journey to Zion was a rite of passage, a momentous process of embracing new elements of an identity they had first chosen at the time of their baptism. Lucy Stanton, however, had a far... Read more

The Measure of a Woman: Donald Trump and St. Margaret’s Dragon

Last updated on: April 27, 2021 at 5:34 pm By Beth Allison Barr

“Women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.” So Republican Presidential Candidate Carly Fiorina responded to Donald Trump at the Second G.O.P. Debate (Wednesday, September 16, 2015) after a moderator reminded how Trump had previously used Fiorina’s physical appearance to criticize her political aspirations. “Look at that face! Would anybody vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” Trump had reportedly exclaimed during a recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine. Trump’s... Read more

Searching for the Political Messiah

Last updated on: October 5, 2015 at 11:13 am By Thomas Kidd

Some signs would suggest that we’re finally seeing the decline of the Donald Trump candidacy/reality show. If so, Republicans and the evangelical “base” will go on in search of their candidate of choice. And GOP candidates will go on trying to convince us that they are the next Reagan, and the anti-Obama. Vetting the candidates is good and proper, although it means that vast amounts of money are spent on ads trying to play on the emotions of disengaged voters.... Read more

Reading Noah

Last updated on: October 2, 2015 at 5:17 am By Philip Jenkins

In my last post, I discussed the Book of Noah, a semi-lost text that presently survives in very partial form in the Book of 1 Enoch. Here, I want to suggest some of the things we can learn from reading this book. Why should we read Noah? I should add that, as I mentioned in the last post, some modern scholars challenge the existence of a Book of Noah as a separate entity, and their views must carry weight. For... Read more

Welcome to New Blogger Dr. Beth Allison Barr!

Last updated on: October 2, 2015 at 3:20 pm By Thomas Kidd

Beginning this week my Baylor colleague Dr. Beth Allison Barr will be joining the roster of the Anxious Bench bloggers. Dr. Barr is Associate Professor of History at Baylor and a Resident Scholar at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion. Her research focuses on women and gender identity in medieval and early modern English sermons, as well as how the Reformation era affected women in Christianity. She is the author of The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England (Boydell,... Read more

Noah’s Book

Last updated on: July 3, 2015 at 12:53 pm By Philip Jenkins

At my church not long ago, the Sunday reading was from 2 Samuel, giving David’s unforgettable lament for Jonathan. Preceding that, though, was a cryptic reference attributing a statement to the Book of Jasher. That is not the only Biblical reference to a now lost book: we have (or to be more precise, don’t have) the Book of the Wars of the Lord, the book of Samuel the seer, the book of Nathan the prophet, and so on. Sometimes such... Read more

Adam, Billy Graham, and Biblical Authority

Last updated on: September 30, 2015 at 2:19 pm By johnturner

Last week, I excerpted some highlights from a recent intra-evangelical debate about Adam’s historicity in the (online) pages of Book & Culture. Today, some commentary. I agree with William VanDoodewaard that the somewhat lopsided nature of the debate is itself remarkable: “Combined as participants we present one quarter committed to the historical Adam of historic Christian orthodoxy, yet the reality is that the only predecessors to our three quarters who abandon this Adam are found in Enlightenment skeptics, 19th-century higher... Read more

“You Know Where Else They Have May-Day Military Exhibitions?”

Last updated on: September 28, 2015 at 9:23 am By David Swartz

Wes Craven wasn’t the only rebel at Wheaton. Many students in the 1960s and 1970s echoed his cultural critique. Much of the dissent centered on the mandatory ROTC program at the college. Support for ROTC weakened in the mid-1960s, as did support for the elaborately staged annual Veterans Day chapel services and the regular features in The Record on the exploits of the “Crusader Battalion.” After one Veterans Day chapel service in which 550 cadets marched into Edman Chapel in... Read more