Preaching Bonhoeffer and the Uses of the Past

Last updated on: November 14, 2012 at 11:57 am By John Fea

Anxious Bench blogger John Turner asked me to republish this piece here. It originally appeared on November 8, 2012 at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. -JF Last night at Messiah College I heard Christian writer Eric Metaxas give a very entertaining, humorous, and inspiring lecture on the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The lecture was based on his wildly successful book, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Since I received several e-mails and Facebook messages from readers about Messiah’s decision to... Read more

Culture-Changing Christians

Last updated on: January 13, 2014 at 12:57 pm By Thomas Kidd

When Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election, many disappointed supporters – including a number of evangelicals – suggested that his defeat spoke to an American culture in decline. For politics to change, they say, culture must change. Glenn Beck, for example, tweeted that “the time for politics is over. I’m doubling down on my efforts to shift the culture.” Evangelical Christians are especially attuned to talk of changing culture. But what culture is, and just how it changes, is... Read more

The “Modern Secular University”

Last updated on: November 11, 2012 at 9:36 pm By Thomas Albert Howard

Members of religious orders who served as faculty on the first universities of the Middle Ages would certainly find it of more than passing interest that the term “university” today is often associated with adjectives such as “modern” and “secular” as in the “modern secular research university.” In the United States, pride of place in cementing these associations might well go Cornell University, co-founded in 1865 by Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918), who desired that a “non-sectarian” university contribute to... Read more

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

Last updated on: November 11, 2012 at 7:28 pm By John Fea

A few things online that caught my attention this week: The Roanoke Colony New issue of the Journal of Southern Religion Jill Abramson reviews Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power. Joyce Appleby reviews it here How to be in a Springsteen documentary Church affiliation in colonial America and today America and the Republic of Letters The new Archbishop of Canterbury Click here for more. Read more

ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE?

Last updated on: October 30, 2012 at 9:48 am By Philip Jenkins

Not long ago, John Turner ignited controversy when he challenged the idea that Mormonism was a “cult,” a concept I have myself written on at some length. (By the way, some scholars define “cult” as “a small unpopular religion,” without specifying whether the unpopularity is merited). For present purposes though, I am interested in another idea that surfaces repeatedly in these “cult” debates, namely that a particular movement violates “traditional Christian orthodoxy,” historic orthodoxy, or some similar term. This concept... Read more

New History of New Thought

Last updated on: November 8, 2012 at 12:42 am By johnturner

John S. Haller Jr.’s The History of New Thought helped me understand a subject that has always vexed me. Several years ago, I read Catherine Albanese’s magisterial A Republic of Mind and Spirit, which presents “metaphysical religion” as a commonly omitted branch of American religious history. “Metaphysical religion…” she argues, “is at least as important as evangelicalism in fathoming the shape and scope of American religious history.” [Partly following the lead of Jon Butler, she also identifies a “liturgical” form... Read more

Why I am Glad the Election is Over

Last updated on: November 7, 2012 at 1:28 am By John Fea

“As an American historian, what do you think about the 2012 presidential election?” I am asked this question often and I am never sure how to answer it. Ask me in another ten or twenty years and maybe I might have an answer. Or maybe ask another historian one-hundred years from now. Sure, historians can place the re-election of Obama in a historical context and compare this election to others that have occurred in the past, but historians, in order... Read more

Are Evangelicals Welcome on the “Front Porch”?

Last updated on: December 10, 2012 at 6:43 pm By Thomas Kidd

I have written here several times about thoroughly conservative evangelicals who are “reluctant” Republicans. I call these folks “paleo evangelicals.” I noted that some (though surely not all) of the paleo evangelicals are fans of websites such as the Front Porch Republic (which emphasizes “place, self-government, sustainability, limits, and variety” as key terms in any real solutions to our cultural malaise), and publications such as The American Conservative. Darryl Hart, who teaches history at Hillsdale College and is the author of... Read more

GOD IN LATIN AMERICA

Last updated on: October 29, 2012 at 10:46 am By Philip Jenkins

I recently lamented the coverage of religious matters at scholarly conferences, the point being that academics tended to ignore faith-based dimensions even when they seem so essential to the story being told. I was specifically describing the proceedings of the recent conference of the Urban History Association, but I certainly don’t mean to pick on that group, or indeed on historians in general. An even more telling example was apparent at this year’s meeting of the Latin American Studies Association... Read more

Sunday Night Odds and Ends

Last updated on: November 4, 2012 at 9:38 pm By John Fea

A few things online that caught my attention this week: Jackson Lears: Mormons and capitalism Alan Jacobs on the problems with political realism Humility and the renaissance of geographic history Governors and the “hurricane conversion.” Henry Louis Gates Jr. on growing up colored The writing addiction Brave thinking H.W. Brands on Ulysses S. Grant. Eric Foner reviews Brands, The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace READ THE REST HERE Read more