“My reading of the Bible finds plenty of reminders that it’s better to teach someone to fish than to give them fish if they’re able,” said Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker shortly after his most recent electoral victory, “…Caring for the poor isn’t the same as taking money from the federal government to lock more people into Medicaid.” Yes, job skills, especially if they lead to jobs, are certainly better than handouts, and one can always criticize our dysfunctional system of... Read more
Turkey might be traditional fare at Thanksgiving, but it’s probably not historical. If the Pilgrims ate any birds at all, historian Tracy McKenzie writes in his fascinating book The First Thanksgiving, they were probably waterfowl. William Bradford remembered that there were “swarms and multitudes” of ducks, swans, herons, and cranes. There were, said a Dutch West India Company agent, lots of turkeys too, but they had “very long legs” and could run “extraordinarily fast.” The Pilgrims probably didn’t catch many... Read more
Today’s post is an excerpt from my essay on George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, and the Art of Religious Biography, from the recently-released book American Evangelicalism: George Marsden and the State of American Religious History (Univ. of Notre Dame Press), which I co-edited with Darren Dochuk and Kurt Peterson. Biographers have put Jonathan Edwards’s thought and life to many uses. Americans seemingly have an insatiable appetite for biography, and Edwards is in the second rank of our most popular and enduring American... Read more
Pope Francis has been back in the news. Most recently, because the Vatican confirmed that he will visit the United States next year, but earlier because of the much-discussed extraordinary synod on the family. At this gathering, some prelates drafted a document evincing an unprecedented welcome to gays and divorced Catholics before it was criticized and ultimately shot down by other bishops. The sentiments expressed at the synod coupled with some of the pope’s own remarks have emboldened some to... Read more
Although the third century BC is a shadowy time in Jewish history, both faith and people were being transformed in multiple ways. I recently lamented how little we know of the Jewish world in Palestine at this time, but of course revolutionary developments were occurring elsewhere, in the emerging Diaspora. Two developments in this era demand our attention. One was the growth of the city of Alexandria, which was founded in 331BC. It soon attracted a Jewish population, and by... Read more
Today’s guest post is by Nathan A. Finn, who serves as associate professor of historical theology and Baptist studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he also directs the Center for Spiritual Formation and Evangelical Spirituality. You can follow him on Twitter. By most accounts, Billy Graham was the most influential American evangelical during the latter half of the twentieth century. Duke University Divinity School historian Grant Wacker has written an important new study of the evangelist titled America’s Pastor: Billy... Read more
Today through Friday, I am in San Diego, CA, attending the 66th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). The theme this year is “ecclesiology” and there are several good sessions on historical themes, including one I organized on the negative interplay between ecumenical evangelicalism and denominationalism. (More on that below.) Further, there are several other (non-historical) sessions that look interesting and three solid plenary sessions. First, a little history (taken from a prior post): Formed in 1949, the... Read more
In my Baylor graduate seminar on the American Revolution, we recently read Jill Lepore’s marvelous Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin. She details Ben and Jane Franklin’s lengthy correspondence, pondering the ways in which the circumstances of history allowed the bright boy Ben to pursue fame and scientific knowledge, while Jane married at fifteen and lived a family life that was rich in relationships but also full of strife and struggle. (Many children and grandchildren preceded her... Read more
I am in search of a missing century. As I recently described, the second century BC was an incredibly fertile time for Jewish culture and religion, with emerging ideas about Judgment and the afterlife, angels and demons, and a major outpouring of writings. From a Christian perspective, we are looking at the essential prehistory of that faith. Some of the most innovative and influential texts shaping that era probably emerged at the end of the third century, especially in writings... Read more
Access to the Internet has transformed my perception of the value of visual images to understanding history, and also to teaching the subject. Through a resource like Google Images, it is now easy to find depictions of any era, topic or theme, with a wealth and variety that would have been quite unobtainable even through the world’s best libraries. Such images are easily downloaded, and can be instantly used in blog posts, or in power point presentations for classes. If... Read more
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