InterVarsity and #BlackLivesMatter in Historical Perspective

Last updated on: January 6, 2016 at 12:20 pm By David Swartz

In the last month, Franklin Graham called for a moratorium on Muslim immigration. Polls seemed to show considerable evangelical support for Donald Trump. Jerry Falwell declared, “If more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in and killed them.” Graham and Falwell represent a particular strain of Christianity. Large numbers of evangelicals find these statements unbiblical and embarrassing. A gathering last week of 16,000 evangelical university students in St. Louis offers a helpful... Read more

Donald Trump and the Crisis of American Populism

Last updated on: January 4, 2016 at 11:45 am By Thomas Kidd

In the 1960s William F. Buckley famously quipped that he’d rather be governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston phone book than by Harvard’s two thousand faculty members. I still agree with Buckley, but events of 2015 have made my populist leanings waver. We are waiting to see whether Donald Trump’s enormous lead in polls will actually translate into votes, but we already know enough to see that the reputed “common sense” of regular American people has... Read more

Remembering the Massacres of Innocents

Last updated on: December 23, 2015 at 4:34 pm By Thomas Albert Howard

Lately, the nation has rightly focused on the jihadist massacres in Beruit, Paris, and San Bernardino. But the presents roughly marks the two-year anniversary of our own homegrown terrorism committed in Newtown, Connecticut. Since December 28 is the Feast Day of the Holy Innocents, permit this re-posting from the Anxious Bench archives: The senseless tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut prior to Christmas continues to haunt me. We have had school shootings in this country before, to be sure, but the age... Read more

Apocalypse at Dabiq

Last updated on: January 1, 2016 at 9:11 am By Philip Jenkins

Over the past year, the word Dabiq has come to be associated with some horrendous deeds. That is the name of the emetic publication of the group ISIS/Daesh, in which it presents its propaganda and advocates acts of terror worldwide. Here, though, in a series of posts, I want to describe where the name comes from, and the surprising thought-world it indicates. More particularly, I will describe the Christian background. Looking at the world of Muslim apocalyptic, Christians will encounter... Read more

The Study Quran

Last updated on: December 18, 2015 at 4:27 pm By johnturner

For the unfamiliar (that includes me), the Qur’an is an imposing, rather intimidating scripture. Unlike the Bible, it doesn’t contain long chunks of historical narrative that allow one to advance in something like chronological order. Without knowing the context of the individual sections (or sections of sections), one encounters a bewildering array of spiritual, legal, and political-military counsel. In my introductory courses (most typically an introduction to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), I assign the Harper Collins Study Bible (NRSV) and... Read more

A Pastor’s Quick Guide to Reliable Historical Research

Last updated on: December 29, 2015 at 10:24 pm By Beth Allison Barr

A friend of mine was preparing his sermon. We happened to be at the same social function, and so he casually asked me what I knew about medieval illuminations (i.e. fireworks). To be honest, I didn’t know much. From my years of teaching world history I knew that gunpowder and fireworks had originated in Asia and spread rather slowly (along trade routes and through military ventures) to Europe. Hence European fireworks are really an early modern/modern phenomenon. My friend’s question, however,... Read more

The Ghosts of Stonehenge

Last updated on: December 25, 2015 at 9:23 pm By Philip Jenkins

‘Tis the year’s midnight, and ’tis the day’s, and a good time to think of lost worlds and ghosts – in this case, the phantoms of bygone faiths. I offer a strange story, which raises some intriguing questions about the possible limits of popular memory in a non-literate society. And although this concerns ancient Britain, the implications extend to other faiths and their claims to preserve early traditions. Recently, it has been startling to read revolutionary theories of how the... Read more

In Our Time

Last updated on: December 23, 2015 at 11:57 am By Philip Jenkins

Here is my Christmas present to Anxious Bench readers. Do you ever listen to podcasts? Arguably the very best source of first class podcasts, all free, is http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts They offer perhaps hundreds of programs on a near-infinite variety of themes, with multiple updates daily. Specifically religious series include Heart and Soul, and Beyond Belief. Here, though, let me concentrate on one item, namely the superb In Our Time, introduced by veteran broadcaster Melvyn Bragg. Every week, Melvyn chooses a topic,... Read more

The First Bath

Last updated on: December 15, 2015 at 6:49 am By Philip Jenkins

Shepherds, magi, the ox and the ass… how can you say anything new about the Christmas scene? Through much of Christian history, there was actually a lot more to the story, mainly derived from the second century “Infancy Gospel of James,” the Protevangelium. This told elaborate stories of the birth, many involving the midwife, Salome. The Protevangelium dropped out of use quite early in the West, although its influence survived in several more or less plagiarized versions. But in the... Read more