After twenty-one years of marriage, my wife and I know each other pretty well. We are in that stage of our relationship where we often know what the other person is thinking in a conversation with a third party and can, at times, finish each other’s sentences. Often, we find ourselves exclaiming, “that’s exactly what I was thinking!” Yet, my wife still regularly surprises me with some unknown childhood anecdote or an opinion on a particular topic. To me, those... Read more
This semester I am teaching a graduate seminar on the American Revolutionary Era. As I have written before, choosing a book list for a graduate course is not as simple as picking 13 to 15 of your favorite books on a topic. When assigning books, I take several factors into account – inexpensive editions (usually paperbacks); “classics” in the field; new and seemingly important titles (some of which I may not have read yet either); breadth of topical coverage; one... Read more
I posted recently on Friedrich Engels’s On the History of Early Christianity, his 1890s text that actually makes some excellent historical points about the social and political contexts of the early church. On occasion, it’s actually… well, pretty funny. As a historian, Engels had the enormous virtue of moving outside the library, to understand early Christianity though his own lived experience in the nineteenth century radical Socialist underground. He knew exactly what it was like to operate in a clandestine... Read more
There is an odd but very useful source on early Christianity that remains strangely unfamiliar to many historians of that topic. Even less known is the discussion by a totally unexpected nineteenth century source, which provides many insights that are still valuable. In the late second century, the pagan satirist Lucian wrote the story of one Peregrinus, who died in the 160s. (He burned himself alive). Lucian presents Peregrinus as a Cynic, a rogue pseudo-philosopher who wanders from city to... Read more
On April 8, 1877, Brigham Young delivered a sermon on the occasion of his imminent departure from the St. George Temple. Many observers of Young’s multifaceted career forget how significant temple-building was for him and for his legacy. “We shall build Temples over north and South America,” Young declared in 1875 while planning the construction of a temple in Manti, Utah. Twenty years earlier, he had expressed his hope that men and women would one day work in “thousands of... Read more
I’m pleased to feature a guest post by my friend and colleague Kevin Brown, an assistant professor of business and economics at Asbury University. This column is based in part on an article, “Capitalism and the Common Good,” that appears in the September 2014 issue of Christianity Today. *** In the late 1950s, the economist Leonard Read wrote an essay that continues to demand attention over half a century later. The subject? A pencil. Seeking to convey the multitude of... Read more
Last week at CNN.com, progressive Christian author Matthew Paul Turner wrote a piece about the ways that America has “changed God.” George Whitefield came into the discussion in way #2. Rather than engaging humanity through communal covenants—holy connections usually reserved for large groups —according to the Anglican evangelist George Whitefield, God was now interested in making personal relationships with individuals. Though Americans were a century or two away from asking Jesus into their hearts, Whitefield and others began preaching that God... Read more
Well into the early modern period, some histories of the world written by Europeans started the story way back—in the garden of Eden. Not just church history, but what passed as universal histories, might start with the creation of the world. Nor is it strange for historians to consider their discipline a science, with human experience, like energy and matter, subject to scientific laws. George Bancroft, nineteenth century U.S. historian who sought the roots of American liberty in Teutonic forests... Read more
In a recent post, I looked at the mysterious figure of the “Woman clothed with the Sun,” depicted in the Book of Revelation. I suggested that she was likely to symbolize New Israel or the Church, although later generations have usually connected her with the Virgin Mary, and the Revelation passage has largely shaped later iconography of the Virgin as Queen of Heaven. I do not mean to suggest, though, that the Marian interpretation was a simple pious blunder. What... Read more
The recent de-recognition of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship by the massive California State University system is another escalation in a long simmering conflict. Often with considerable hyperbole, evangelicals have long complained of mistreatment at the hands of university administrators and professors. Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, referred to UCLA as the “little red school house” at the outset of his ministry, which began at that institution. Despite such rhetoric (which resembled William F. Buckley’s complaints about Yale... Read more
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