Framed as just another part of the long and interesting reign of Margrete I, the panel pictured below from the Akershus Fortress Museum discusses religion’s role in policy during her later reign, after the dynastic disputes of the late 14th century had been settled and the kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden united under a single crown. It was perhaps meant as a throwaway statement during the broader narrative, but the reference to a women’s fund for those ‘violated or... Read more
Several weeks ago, while browsing at my local public library, I came across Rosaria Butterfield’s new book, Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age. I hadn’t heard of it. But like so many other evangelicals, I had heard of Butterfield. I read The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith (2012), her popular conversion narrative, and listened to her narrate her account of the winsome, generous Rev. Ken and Floy Smith, of persistent... Read more
I recently posted about the superb new Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity (henceforward CHAC), edited by my two Baylor colleagues Bruce Longenecker and David Wilhite. I have been exploring the book in some detail to prepare for a forthcoming symposium we are holding around it at Baylor University on March 27 (See the full event program here). Reading the book gave me a lot of ideas not just about the specific essays in that book, but more generally about the... Read more
I don’t often think about Marabel Morgan, but when I do, it’s while watching the Super Bowl. If you’ve heard of Marabel Morgan, you are probably either a religious historian or an evangelical of a certain age. No longer a common name in the American church, Morgan was a superstar in the 1970s. In 1973, Morgan published The Total Woman. Here’s historian Emily Suzanne Johnson’s description of this wildly popular book, from her own thoughtful and balanced work This is... Read more
When Politico reporter Heidi Przybyla said on MSNBC last week that what “unites” all Christian nationalists is a belief that their rights “come from God” rather than from any “earthly authority” such as Congress or the Supreme Court, numerous Christians rightfully pushed back by pointing to the Declaration of Independence. Surely all those who believe the Declaration’s statement that people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” are not by default Christian nationalists, are they? Przybyla’s comments accentuate... Read more
In recent years, the role of Christianity in the development of American empire has received significant attention from both observers of current events and scholars of United States history. Books such as Christian Imperialism by Emily Conroy-Krutz and Religion and U.S. Empire, a collection of essays edited by Tisa Wenger and Sylvester Johnson, reveal the complex ways that Christian beliefs, practices, individuals, and institutions have supported the expansion of American power abroad. And, as scholars like Kathryn Gin Lum and... Read more
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Christianity Today have a history together. Founded in 1956, Christianity Today established its footing in the same years as King, who became a public figure following the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. Both inhabited the broad world of American Christianity. Both sought to shape their constituencies through words formed by faith. Throughout his lifetime and in the months following his death, Christianity Today published fifty-two pieces referencing King. Reviewing these pieces fifty-five... Read more
I have been reading Matthew Barrett’s The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church in preparation for a review. There is much that is commendable in this book, and when my full review is published, likely this summer, I will provide a link for any interested readers. In the abstract, I am for strengthening the connective tissue between the medieval Christianity and the Reformation, so I welcome these sorts of projects. For today, however, I want... Read more
Back in my student days, I read a book that did a lot to shape my thinking about things religious. One of its many provocative ideas concerns this very time of year, as we approach Palm Sunday and Holy Week. The whole story raises the question of how a popular novel can offer really sharp insights about what we might think to be technical scholarly debates. It might also affect the way you read the word “mountain” whenever you run... Read more
“You need a language with which to express things, which at a certain age you felt you could do yourself, and gradually, somehow, it’s like switching from pastel paint to heavy oils.”[1] Peter Brown wrote these words at the age of eighty-six, having written books in the historical guild since he was in his twenties. I first came across the line while working on my undergraduate capstone, but it has stuck with me through my continuing “journeys of the mind”... Read more
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