I cringe a bit when my children break into show tunes while in public. Selections from Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat are fine (though they’re still stumbling through the “red and yellow and green and brown/And scarlet and black and ochre and peach/And lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve . . .” part). My worry is whether they’re going to sing “Take an Indian to Lunch.” It’s a catchy song with impolitic title. But the words, which point to... Read more
I routinely get questions from undergraduate and Master’s students, at Baylor and elsewhere, about applying to Ph.D. programs. Here is some of my standard advice. How do I choose a Ph.D. program? I had a wonderful experience in my graduate program at Notre Dame, especially because of the particular historian (George Marsden) with whom I worked. Many people make the mistake of thinking “school” instead of “advisor” when considering Ph.D. programs. Not that the quality of school is irrelevant – there... Read more
Last week Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found guilty on thirty counts. Jurors—and everyone else in and around Boston—now contemplate sentencing. Discussions about the death penalty have a strange ring in Massachusetts, a state that renounced it in 1984 and had its last execution 1947. Residents debate capital punishment for the Boston Marathon bomber, with the Boston Globe arguing against it. What might be needed here is not an execution, but an execution sermon. A genre distinctive (if not unique) to New... Read more
I recently reconnected with some old friends – well, very old really, about three centuries in fact. I have long been interested in those conservative European and North American believers who forsake Western denominations that they see as too liberal, and who place themselves under the authority of some African or Asian prelate. The best known examples are in the Episcopal/Anglican tradition, but we see similar patterns among European Lutherans. This trend goes back about twenty years, and it is... Read more
Today’s guest post is from Kristin du Mez, Associate Professor of History at Calvin College. Her A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism has just been published with Oxford University Press. “If conservative churches preach the dominance of men, and submission of women, does this add weight to those who think men have a right—even a divine right—to control their partners?” This was the question Australian journalist Julia Baird asked a few weeks back... Read more
A month ago, the board of Sweet Briar College announced that the school, which has educated women in a single-sex environment for over 100 years, would close after the 2014-15 academic year. The announcement by the school’s board sent waves through national news cycle. The Diane Rehm Show, which is always a good measure of hot topic news items, devoted a whole hour to “Worries About the Future of Liberal Arts Colleges,” and Mark Cuban proclaimed that “this is just the beginning... Read more
Everyone seemingly wants to be an author, and most authors want to promote their books. We want to sell copies, of course, but we also want to promote the ideas within our books. The best piece of advice I can offer regarding book promotion is that if you wait until your book is published to think about book promotion, it is too late. I have written before about platforms and publishing, which remains a controversial topic among authors. On one... Read more
Messianic visions became central to Jewish thought during the second century BC, and the Dead Sea Scrolls produced abundant evidence of the power and diversity of those approaches. The Scrolls are usually associated with a Jewish sect tied to the Essenes and to Enochic traditions, which was deeply at odds with the Maccabean/Hasmonean ruling family. Some or all of the texts were written or at least preserved at the settlement of Qumran, which was probably founded around 160 BC, and... Read more
The figure of the Messiah has been critical to both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. Christians, by definition, are followers of the Messiah. In tracing the origin of this idea, though, we must draw a distinction between eschatological hopes of a glorious coming age, and the individual figure of the messiah, the Davidic king. In the familiar form of a specific human who would usher in the Last Times, the concept is only really defined during the second century BC. In... Read more
In the middle of 1870, Scipio Africanus Kenner feared losing the girl he loved. For some time, he had been courting Isabel Park with her family’s encouragement. Then, suddenly, Park’s mother cooled on the match and asked Kenner never to visit the home again. Park, however, did not stop seeing Kenner. According to Kenner, Agnes Park then began berating and beating her daughter, desperate to impede a probable marriage. Why the turnabout? Agnes Park believed that Kenner “had negro blood... Read more
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