Starting today, I will be offering the readers of The Anxious Bench a taste of “Sunday Night Odds and Ends,” a weekly feature from my blog, The Way of Improvement Leads Home. –JF Ron Sider is retiring Alison Collis Greene vs. H.L. Mencken. The topic is Mississippi Roundtable on Blum and Harvey’s The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America Katie thinks history is “pointless” and no one “cares about the Civil... Read more
Over the past century or so, worldwide Christianity has definitively moved South. In 1900, Christianity firmly rooted in Europe and North America, while by the mid-21st century it will find by far its greatest strongholds in Africa and Latin America. Arguably, the secularization that has been such a marked feature of European life is now making inroads even into the United States. But while so much is familiar, it’s still tempting to position North and South in the familiar terms... Read more
I am a presidential debate junkie. Predictable as they are in parts, they’re also the best political theater that American politics has to offer. No one expected Mitt Romney to clean Barack Obama’s clock in the first debate. I didn’t expect Mitt Romney to clean his own clock in the second half of last night’s debate. Why bring up “binders of women?” Why interrupt a discussion about immigration to remind Barack Obama that his (much smaller) portfolio also invests in... Read more
Two weeks ago I wrote in this space about the relationship between the historians work and the reality of human sin. This week, I want to focus on the historian’s work as it relates to the Judeo-Christian belief in Imago Dei. Those committed to the Judeo-Christian tradition believe that God has created humans beings. In the opening chapters of the Old Testament book of Genesis we learn more about what that means. One central theme in the Genesis creation story... Read more
The mainstream media loves politically liberal evangelicals, especially at this time of year, as we wonder whether the evangelical base will turn out sufficiently to win the election for the Republicans. But the media seems to have missed another category of evangelical that is ill at ease with the Republican Party. Borrowing loosely from the term paleoconservatives, let’s call them paleo evangelicals. The paleo evangelicals are not liberal in any sense. They come from diverse backgrounds and perspectives: some are... Read more
Two noteworthy anniversaries are marked this month: the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, which occurred on October 11, 1962, and the 495th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, widely recognized on October 31, but transferred and celebrated by many churches as “Reformation Sunday.” (This year it occurs on the 27th). Admittedly, the latter anniversary perhaps only gains greater purchase on our imagination now as it betokens the epochal 500th anniversary, which will be marked worldwide in... Read more
Fascinating podcast interview here by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler, with the Anxious Bench’s John Turner on his new biography of Brigham Young. Read more
Thanks to Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition for posting an interview with Mark Noll and George Marsden on the idea of America as a Christian nation. (Marsden was my doctoral advisor, and my blogging colleague John Turner’s.) Read more
How many good films have ever been made on the subject of Christian missions and missionaries? For many years, I have dearly loved the 1944 film The Keys of the Kingdom, based on the 1941 novel by A. J. Cronin. In more recent years, though, as I studied global Christianity, it occurred to me what a treasure the film is, and how often it runs against contemporary stereotypes. It does a lovely job of portraying the American vision of missions... Read more
This week’s big religious headline was a Pew Report that documented (among other trends) the rapid rise of religiously non-affiliated Americans (“nones,” colloquially). The ranks of the unaffiliated (comprised of atheists, agnostics, and those with “nothing in particular”) rose from 15.3% of the U.S. population in 2007 to 19.6% in 2012. Although Pew carefully notes that many “nones” maintain belief in God and other markers of religious belief, this is still a large increase in religious non-affiliation. Pew headlined its... Read more
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