I love Advent hymns. My mother was always adamant that Christians had no business singing Christmas hymns prior to at least Christmas eve. We only have four Sundays on which to sing Advent hymns, so there’s no musical reason — and no theologically sound reason — to rush past our season of hopeful expectation. Well, I love most Advent hymns. I get very tired of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” sung far too slowly. If we must sing slowly, “Of... Read more
Update: New developments in the Mefferd-Driscoll storyline can be found over at Warren Throckmorton’s blog post, “Janet Mefferd Removes Evidence Relating to Charges of Plagiarism Against Mark Driscoll; Apologizes to Audience.” Updated 12/4/13 @ 5:14 pm EST The recent dust-up within evangelical circles over accusations of plagiarism highlights one of the problems with the personality-based leadership that encompasses most of American evangelicalism. For those of you unfamiliar with the hullabaloo, Tyndale House recently released A Call to Resurgence: Will Christianity... Read more
My wife and I are not exactly fire-breathing homeschool zealots. Homeschooling is not for everybody, and we have friends in Waco whose kids do just fine in public and private schools. But for us, and for many paleo evangelicals and their fellow travelers, the advantages of homeschooling are quite compelling. Recent reports have suggested that the circle of homeschooling is widening beyond traditional Christians, primarily because many parents are realizing that homeschool is the best educational option for their children. (See... Read more
I have posted several times on religious images in art and what they can tell us about ideas and debates in earlier eras. I think scholars often pay insufficient attention to the incredible resources that lie in such visual imagery – we can be a very text-bound lot. As an example, I offer William Hogarth’s astonishing picture of religious fanaticism in eighteenth century England, his 1761 response to the Methodist Revival – and every point applies to the critics of... Read more
I was thinking about how the media report religious controversies, and particularly how they decide to identify particular individuals as key generals in the ongoing culture wars. (Yes, I know the “culture wars” are usually assigned to the 1990s, but you know what I mean). Recently I read a Christian Century piece about a familiar type of secular/religious confrontation, which made a point of quoting Barry Lynn. He was identified as “Executive Director of Americans United for the Separation of... Read more
It’s Thanksgiving. My plan was to plug my review of Tracy McKenzie’s The First Thanksgiving before stuffing myself with eel and turnips. Alas, it’s hard to feel thankful when one’s co-bloggers interrupt one’s plans by both reviewing the same book. But if I also write a hearty endorsement of Tracy’s book, visitors to the Anxious Bench will wonder if he’s paying us some sort of bribe. Instead, I will make public expressions of Thanksgiving an annual affair. This is important,... Read more
Americans generally view Thanksgiving as an idyllic affair. Kind Indians wearing paper feathers teaching black-and-white clad Pilgrims to survive in the New England wild. Sitting down to eat tryptophan together. And celebrating, if Rush Limbaugh is to be believed in his just-released book Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims, that “capitalism and Scripture saved the day.” It would be easy to rest easy in these cultural myths as we gorge on turkey, slump on our reclining chairs, and watch the... Read more
Over at Christianity Today, I reviewed Robert Tracy McKenzie’s excellent The First Thanksgiving. Here’s a sample: In 1623, Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford proclaimed the first Thanksgiving. “The great Father,” he declared, “has given us this year an abundant harvest…and granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.” He directed the Pilgrims to gather that November, “the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to listen to ye Pastor and render Thanksgiving to... Read more
Last week came the news that, in the latest legal success for secularist advocacy groups, a federal judge ruled that clergy’s tax-exempt “housing allowance” is unconstitutional. It is difficult to know exactly what the Founders would have thought of this issue, because a) there was no federal income tax until the early 20th century and b) there were no secularist advocacy groups suing over the public role of religion in 1776. However, this seems like another example of secularist overreach,... Read more
For many Christians, Biblical literalism is a fraught subject. My own theory is that one can be conservative to different degrees about such matters, but absolute 100% literalism is impossible, because there are at least a few Biblical verses that nobody can accept in pure literal form. The obvious example is Joshua 10.12-13, which assumes that the Sun rotates around the earth. “The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.” As... Read more
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