I wasn’t able to attend the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City this year. But blogs and twitter have allowed me to track some of the conversation in the area of religious history, my area of research specialty. There were dozens and dozens of panels, but here are several that got the most play on social media (much from John Fea’s terrific blog The Way of Improvement Leads Home) this past weekend: “Futures of the... Read more
A new Pew report has confirmed what we’ve known was coming for the American family: a majority of American children now live in homes without married parents in their first marriage. The reasons behind this “new normal” of the broken American family are complex but are certainly related to factors including the “sexual revolution” that began in the 1960s, the advent of no-fault divorce, and generational patterns of people having children out of wedlock. As The Washington Post and virtually all observers note, single... Read more
Many of us already have bound ourselves to resolutions this year. After fitness the most popular ones include resolutions to learn something. Pick up a new language, Rosetta Stone ads implore. The Teaching Company touts Latin 101 as its top-rated course. Resolutions to better the body may have obvious appeal (or not: this husk is fading away) but those fixed on improving minds require some puzzling over. In the late decades of his life William Bradford, long governor of the... Read more
I remarked that Satan is difficult to trace in the canonical Old Testament, but that he becomes prominent in later centuries, in the so-called Inter-Testamental period (a phrase I hate, but let that pass). Moving the diabolical story forward to 200BC, we are clearly entering a different world, and the volume of material is impressive. Probably in the late third century, the Book of the Watchers (now part of 1 Enoch) describes the evil angels who descended to earth to... Read more
The story of Satan is one of remarkable upward mobility. Let me tell that story in barebones form here, and then discuss it in more detail in subsequent posts. Most people have a sense of the Devil’s biography, which owes a great deal to John Milton. In this popular vision, Satan was once a bright angel, who fell through pride. In particular, he resented being ordered to bow before God’s new human creation. Satan and his rebel angels then became... Read more
Happy New Year’s Eve! Yesterday, blogmeister Tommy Kidd graciously posted the top posts from each of the individual contributors who blog under his guidance here at the Anxious Bench. In keeping with the spirit of the season, I have compiled my own list. First, although my Great Aunt Iris might have shared “The Religion of the 1950s” over 6,000 times, it is more likely that some sort of glitch occurred. Assuming that was the case, then my most popular post... Read more
Here are the most popular posts from each contributor at the Anxious Bench this year. We all appreciate your support and interest in our work. Hope you have a delightful and restful Christmas and New Year’s! Agnes Howard, “Why is that Church So Ugly?” Thomas Albert Howard, “The Axe that Severed the Bishop’s Head” Philip Jenkins, “Enoch’s Angels” Thomas Kidd, “The ‘Evangelicals’ Who Are Not Evangelicals” Miles Mullin, “The Religion of the 1950s” David Swartz, “Unexpected Sites of Christian Pacifism:... Read more
The recent furor over shootings of civilians by police has inspired a lot of discussion about eyewitness testimony and the nature of memory, and the question of just how reliable memory can be. If you read the grand jury testimony in the Ferguson, Missouri, case, a number of witnesses reported things that simply did not happen, and could not have happened. Nor did those misleading witnesses necessarily lean to one or other side in the case. If they had been... Read more
Not many people read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow any more, but some of his poems do have unexpected treats. Longfellow himself was a distinctly rational believer, a faithful Unitarian. Some of his poems, though, had a wider religious message, and his Christmas Bells has been much recorded in modern times. Someone could write a good book on the poem’s presence in popular religious culture. Here, though, I focus on a different piece. In 1863, Longfellow published a poem with a thoroughly medieval... Read more
I’m pleased to feature a guest post from Bradley Strait, a senior history major at Asbury University. This is based in part on a paper he wrote for the class “Seminar on War, Peace, and Faith.” *** One hundred-years ago, almost to the day, in 1914, a Christmas story emerged out of the trenches. As the Great War raged on in Belgium, both the Germans and British fought for victory amidst little underground “communities” of human suffering, fear, and sickness.... Read more
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