[Today’s post is from my Patheos archive] Happy New Year! I have routinely resolved at the New Year that I’d like to read more, and to read more intentionally. (Of course, a major part of my job as a history professor is reading, and much of that reading is pleasurable, but I am talking about the kind of non-professional reading I do in the evenings or on weekends.) My Baylor colleague Alan Jacobs encourages us to embrace the freedom to read... Read more
Tommy Kidd and I have both recently posted about writing and publishing – chiefly in history, but what we said also applies to plenty of other humanities disciplines. Assume you have an idea for a book, but don’t know exactly how to get it into print. Tommy mentioned submitting a proposal to the publisher, to give them a clear idea of what he was proposing, and whether it was something they might actually want. That’s actually a crucial stage in... Read more
I have been re-reading Steven Pinker’s provocative book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011). Briefly (and his argument is quite dense – 830 pages!) Pinker argues that mass violence and killing have steadily declined through the centuries, and that even the appalling wars of the twentieth century were far less destructive – in relation to global population – than were conflicts of ancient and medieval times. Interpersonal violence has also declined astonishingly, as measured for... Read more
Reforming Hollywood is a complex and fascinating book. “The prevailing view in histories of American film,” writes William Romanowski, “is that Protestants were determined to impose the rule of censorship on Hollywood, and for that reason they refused to cooperate with the [Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America].” For a detailed and thorough review, see Alissa Wilkinson’s at Christianity Today. In the contemporary United States, Christians — and many others — cannot escape or readily ignore aspects of popular... Read more
On the afternoon of December 25, 1530, Martin Luther preached a Christmas sermon. In the context of a still-chaotic Reformation, a combative Martin Luther railed against “papists,” “Junkers,” and “Turks” as he proclaimed the “joyful news” that the Christ child was the Lord and Savior. Luther was clearly embattled. In the wake of the 1529 Marburg Coloquy (at which Luther stood firmly against Ulrich Zwingli’s memorialist view of the Eucharist) and the 1529 Siege of Vienna by the Ottomans (at... Read more
Our modern American Christmas is an anxious affair—and not just because of “those” relatives you don’t want to see. We so constantly remind ourselves to focus on Christ during Christmas that “The reason for the season” has become an American Christian mantra. In light of our annual December anxiety, I find it strangely comforting that Americans of the founding era warned against the distractions of Christmas, too. In the 1700s, Christmas was notorious for drunken bashes more reminiscent of Mardi... Read more
Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran a piece on China’s new leader Xi Jinping’s efforts to shore up party loyalty by having government officials watch a new film about the collapse of the Soviet Union. Produced by a retired Chinese major general, the six-part documentary points a finger at Mikhail Gorbachev, not the communist system itself, as the source of the USSR’s crack-up. Those required to see the film are expected “to correctly understand the lessons of history,” according to... Read more
I was hugely grateful for Tommy Kidd’s recent column on publishing in history. His post took so many themes that are quite familiar to academics and professional scholars, and then unpacked them for non-specialists in an extraordinarily valuable way. That was a real contribution. Like Tommy, I also lay claim to being a prolific publisher. (If he carries on as he is, he will undoubtedly surpass me before too long, the whippersnapper). I’m sometimes asked if I have any advice... Read more
One would think that with the half-decade “Mormon moment” now well past, Mormonism would now generate news only infrequently. That is not quite turning out to be the case. New missionary requirements, concerns about internet-driven apostasy, the recent statement on the priesthood ban, and now a Utah District Court decision that strikes down part (but only part) of a 1973 statute against polygamy and cohabitation. First some background… Partly because of an ongoing threat of prosecution, the polygamous Brown family... Read more
In my last post, I suggested that the evangelical embrace of personality-driven leadership forms the backstory to the Mark Driscoll-Janet Mefferd imbroglio over plagiarism. Several commentators on the blog raised astute questions regarding the pervasive nature of this aspect of American evangelicalism. After all, doesn’t personality-driven leadership characterize evangelicalism in local congregations, not just mega-ministries led by a “celebrity pastor?” Radio host John Hall of Pittsburgh’s Word FM raised a similar question on The Ride Home when we spoke last week.... Read more
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