Scalia’s Worst Decision?

Last updated on: March 26, 2016 at 9:33 am By Thomas Kidd

Today’s guest post is by Dr. Barry Hankins, professor of history at Baylor University, and author of books including Baptists in America: A History (with Thomas Kidd). This week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell. The Sisters, joined by many Protestant groups, have challenged the Affordable Care Act’s mandate on birth control. Even though the Obama administration devised a method by which religious organizations would not have to pay for birth control... Read more

The Curse of Capitals and the Theology of Punctuation

Last updated on: March 25, 2016 at 10:29 am By Philip Jenkins

I have invented a new discipline, the Theology of Punctuation. I am presently writing a book about the couple of centuries preceding Jesus’s time, and over the past year or two I have written quite a few blogs about issues relating to that topic. One of the persistent problems I have relates to capitals and upper case letters. That may sound trivial, but it actually gets to some quite critical issues of translation and interpretation. When we use capitals, we... Read more

Stephen H. Webb

Last updated on: March 24, 2016 at 10:57 pm By johnturner

Two weeks ago, prolific American theologian Stephen H. Webb died. For a beautiful tribute, see this essay. I knew Stephen because we read and reviewed each other’s books. About five years ago or so, I was sitting in the Dallas airport waiting for a flight to a conference. Whenever I’m going to a conference, I always try to pick out those at the gate or on the plane who seem like fellow academics. This is usually not a hard task.... Read more

The Modern Roots of “Pagan” Easter

Last updated on: April 14, 2016 at 10:20 am By Beth Allison Barr

In the late nineteenth century, a Cambridge scholar sat at his desk and wove a brilliant story about comparative religious practices. “ALL over Europe,” he argued, “the peasants have been accustomed from time immemorial to kindle bonfires on certain days of the year, and to dance round or leap over them. Customs of this kind can be traced back on historical evidence to the Middle Ages, and their analogy to similar customs observed in antiquity goes with strong internal evidence... Read more

The Bible: Mass Distribution and Massive Ignorance?

Last updated on: March 21, 2016 at 4:37 pm By Thomas Kidd

Over at the Weekly Standard I reviewed John Fea’s excellent new history of the American Bible Society (ABS). At the end of the review, I reflected on the dilemma of mass Bible ownership versus declining Bible “engagement.” As the ABS observes its 200th birthday, it has become more clearly aligned with a broadly defined evangelicalism than it has been for a century. That adjustment has been both self-conscious and controversial among the ABS leadership. ABS leaders have also become concerned that... Read more

Numbering the Old Testament: 22, 24 , 39, or more?

Last updated on: March 13, 2016 at 4:35 pm By Philip Jenkins

Over the past couple of years my work has often brought me back to the writings of Josephus, and I just wanted to describe one Biblical-related problem that arises there. I claim little originality in what I am writing here, but am rather stating and summarizing a long-running debate. (Jewish readers, please avert your eyes: this will all be painfully obvious). Briefly, how many books are there in the Old Testament? The standard Protestant answer is 39 books, although Catholics... Read more

The King’s Son Enters Jerusalem

Last updated on: March 10, 2016 at 9:27 am By Philip Jenkins

I have been working on European history in the later nineteenth century, and specifically the role of religious and apocalyptic ideas in shaping real-world politics in in that supposedly modern and technological age. I’ll be doing several posts on that topic in coming weeks, but let me just introduce the theme here. What I have to say is highly appropriate for the Palm Sunday weekend. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, European elites were much more deeply immersed... Read more

The End of American Evangelicalism

Last updated on: March 16, 2016 at 11:59 pm By johnturner

One of the big surprises of 2016 is the extent of evangelical support for Donald Trump. As I mentioned several weeks ago, judging by historical precedents, evangelicals might well have divided their support among a number of candidates who spoke persuasively about their Christian faith, including Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and the now-defunct Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, and Jeb Bush. Nevertheless, in many early primaries, Trump attracted a plurality of the Republican evangelical vote. This past Tuesday, things were more... Read more

The Eating Exercise

Last updated on: March 14, 2016 at 12:17 pm By David Swartz

In Desiring the Kingdom James K.A. Smith contends that humans are imaginative, desiring, loving, affective creatures more than automatons driven by cognitive, intellectual perceptions. He writes, “We feel our way around our world more than we think our way through it.” As such, our imaginations need to be converted and enacted through “intentional practices that are tactile, bodily, repetitive, and narratival.” Last semester I attempted to offer my students such tactile resources in my history course on modern America. Their... Read more

Should You Apply to Graduate School?

Last updated on: March 14, 2016 at 10:09 am By Thomas Kidd

Late spring is a good time for potential applicants to start thinking about applying to graduate school. Most application deadlines come between about November 15 and January 15, for admission the following fall. Here’s my post from the Anxious Bench archives about choosing the best programs for you – and whether you should apply to graduate school at all. I routinely get questions from undergraduate and Master’s students about applying to graduate programs. (Mostly in history, though not exclusively.) Here’s... Read more

True or False: The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years.