As an admirer of the Englewood Review of Books, I have been anticipating the release of Slow Church. Now that it’s in my hands, I’m happy to report that it doesn’t disappoint. I am thoroughly convinced by the book’s critique and vision. I’ll leave the close outlining of the book’s contents—on ethics, ecology, and economy—to others who have already done so. Instead, I want to offer a report on the book’s potential audience from my small corner of the world:... Read more
I have been reading Owen Stanwood’s excellent book The Empire Reformed: English America in the Age of the Glorious Revolution, which has taken me back to my own doctoral research and first book (now a cult classic!) The Protestant Interest: New England after Puritanism. Stanwood shows just how much weight “anti-popery” carried in early English America, and how it framed discussions of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-1689, in which the Catholic King James II was booted out in favor of Protestant monarchs... Read more
Many things are wrong with higher education today, to be sure. But let’s not overlook the bright spots. One of these is the Lilly Fellows Program in the Humanities and the Arts seated at Valparaiso University. (Full disclosure: I was a postdoctoral fellow at this program from 1997 to 1999). I write about it now because its guiding light, Mark Schwehn, has recently stepped down as Provost of Valparaiso. His book Exiles from Eden: Religion and the Academic Vocation in... Read more
From the Archive In light of the upcoming annual meeting of the largest (for now) Protestant denominations taking place in Baltimore, MD next week, it seemed appropriate to re-run my two-part series from last summer, “A Primer on the Southern Baptist Convention.” This is the second part. The first part ran Wednesday, June 4th. Relevant updates and emendations have been made. They are indicated by italics. Both a zealous commitment to congregational autonomy and a strong impulse towards cooperative ministry underlie the organizational... Read more
Following on from my book The Great and Holy War, I have been working on the religious and apocalyptic aspects of the First World War, and have recently posted on some major popular culture items from that time. I find myself concentrating on 1916, the year of Mr Britling Sees It Through and The Brook Kerith. The religious upsurge of that year when we consider the massively rising casualties, and the seemingly endless nature of the struggle. Barring divine intervention,... Read more
The Joseph Smith Papers Project website (josephsmithpapers.org) is one of the very best electronic resources pertaining to the history of religion in the United States. It is a companion to the printed volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers, which have set an outrageously high standard for documentary editions because of their clarity of transcription, extensive annotations, and other forms of scholarly apparatus. I like the published volumes, but I love the website, which will eventually contain all of the material... Read more
From the Archive In light of the upcoming annual meeting of the largest (for now) Protestant denominations taking place in Baltimore, MD next week, it seemed appropriate to re-run my two-part series from last summer, “A Primer on the Southern Baptist Convention.” The first part will run today, the second will run on Saturday, June 7th. Relevant updates and emendations have been made. They are indicated by italics. Next week, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) will hold its annual meeting in Baltimore, MD. ... Read more
In anticipation of the 2014 annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC’s LifeWay Christian Resources issued its annual report on church statistics, and for the seventh straight year, the SBC’s overall membership declined. (Here’s my coverage of the 2013 report and annual meeting for WORLD Magazine.) The University of North Carolina’s Molly Worthen, in an important essay on the decline, has asked whether the denomination’s Conservative Resurgence has “failed.” (The Resurgence was Southern Baptist conservatives’ campaign to regain... Read more
In my new book The Great and Holy War, I argued that the catastrophe of the First World War transformed the world’s great religions. I continue to think through some of the implications of this story, for what it might tell us about the history of religions more generally. (I have already posted a couple of items about the relationship between war and religious change). The First World War’s impact on faith and faiths was immense. Reacting to the war’s... Read more
I recently published the book The Great and Holy War, about the religious and apocalyptic dimensions of the First World War era. Looking at the best-selling books of those years gives us a sense of the strong and diverse religious interests of that time, and the results are often surprising. Who for instance would think that even H. G. Wells would pen something like a spiritual classic, in his 1916 title Mr. Britling Sees it Through? But 1916 also brought... Read more
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