This weekend, many millions of people around the world will commemorate St. Patrick as a symbol of Irish national pride. I intend no slight whatever to that national consciousness, nor do I criticize the general partying that claims it as an excuse. What is sad, though, is that portraying Patrick as a generic medieval saint with a powerful fondness for the color green prevents us seeing a real and genuinely heroic individual. He is moreover a person we can know... Read more
Guest Post by Miles S. Mullin, II, J. Dalton Havard School for Theological Studies, Southwestern Seminary Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. James 1:27[1] The global vision of American evangelicalism began in an improbable place, 1950s South Korea, as Americans encountered people like Pun Hui Pak. The youngest of four children, Pun Hui Pak was born in a small... Read more
Whether or not we like the fact, the fate of great religions is often shaped by political factors, by the rise and fall of empires and Great Powers. Just look for instance at the distribution of those thriving Catholic and Anglican churches across the former imperial possessions in Africa. When we write Christian history, though, one empire in particular often escapes our attention, and it provides a vast hole in the story. Once upon a time, in the ancient world,... Read more
The past couple years years have seen a great deal of criticism and allegations about Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), with a number of churches breaking away from the organization, and a lawsuit charging leaders with covering up child physical and sexual abuse in the 1980s and 1990s. Last Friday came the news that SGM founder C.J. Mahaney was stepping down as president, but remaining as pastor of his new SGM church plant in Louisville, Kentucky. For more information on the... Read more
Some years ago, I published The Lost History of Christianity, which traced the early expansion of Christianity into Asia and Africa, as well as Europe. For perhaps a thousand years, Christianity flourished at least as well in Asia as in Europe, and that when we focus wholly on the Western side, we are missing a very great deal of the Christian story. Much of my story concerned the Silk Route, which ran from Syria into China through Central Asia. This... Read more
This column is about one of the truly great Christians of Late Antiquity, but someone you will probably not have heard of. In a world falling into ruins, he kept faith and learning alive. His name was Illtud – and finding him demands a little detective work. You have to be really famous for people not to mention you by name. Suppose for instance I was discussing religion in 1950s America, and I talked about “that great evangelist, with all... Read more
In a post last year, I remarked how definitions of the Biblical canon had changed through the centuries. I’ve recently been working on the history of lost and alternative gospels, and how such texts continued to be available through the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Contrary to popular legend, the mainstream churches did not succeed in stamping out all competitors to the Big Four gospels in the fourth or fifth centuries, and numerous alternative works maintained their influence... Read more
Early Mormons, like Latter-day Saints today, often attracted notice for their love of music, dancing, and theatre. “Whoever goes to hell,” Brigham Young commented in the midst of a Jubilee of dancing and merriment in 1848, “I’ll warrant you won’t hear fiddling or have dancing.” “All music,” he explained, “is in heaven – all enjoyment is of the Lord.” Growing up in a rigorous Methodist household, Young had learned to eschew fiddling and dancing, but after his conversion to Mormonism,... Read more
For much of human history, it is exceedingly difficult to hear the voices of ordinary people, and especially of those whose ideas run contrary to the approved ideologies of the day. Through the long Christian Middle Ages, for instance, it’s hard to reconstruct the mindset of people who did not agree with basic church teachings. Even when courts quote the voices of heretics, we never really know how far judges are putting words into their voices, in accordance with their... Read more
Alister McGrath’s C.S. Lewis: A Life comes with endorsements from Eric Metaxas, Timothy Keller, N.T. Wright, and perhaps most weightily given the topic, from my soon-to-be Baylor colleague Alan Jacobs, who calls it “a meticulously researched, insightful, fair-minded, and honest account of a fascinating man’s life.” As I have written earlier, I admire Jacobs’ own Lewis biography, The Narnian, and his assessment of McGrath’s book is apt. McGrath’s book is a judicious and accessible treatment of Lewis’s remarkable but controversial career. While... Read more
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