THE FAITH OF WALES

Last updated on: August 20, 2012 at 8:57 am By Philip Jenkins

I am a fully certified Welsh person. In fact, other products of my hometown of Port Talbot include Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins, with Rowan Williams and Catherine Zeta-Jones born down the road. We specialize in high drama. Through the years, I have also published extensively on Welsh history, which offers an interesting case-study in religious narrative. Until recent years, that history was recounted largely in terms that were not just religious but Protestant and evangelical, with an arc that... Read more

The Latter-Day Saints and Race

Last updated on: August 18, 2012 at 6:10 pm By Thomas Kidd

The Anxious Bench’s John Turner has a New York Times editorial this weekend titled “Why Race Is Still a Problem for Mormons.” (Turner is the author of a new biography from Harvard University Press titled Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet.) In the Times piece, Turner calls on Mormons to confront directly their church’s historic policies with regard to race, including their ban on men of African descent from the priesthood, which was not formally lifted until 1978. Turner says that most Protestant denominations have gradually apologized... Read more

SONGS OF FAITH

Last updated on: August 16, 2012 at 5:21 pm By Philip Jenkins

I recently asked about novels that could provide useful background for teaching a course on evangelical Christianity. Of course, my question indicated a familiar error, namely that the written word is the best means of teaching in this area, and often it is not. Years ago, I learned the fundamental lesson that if you talk about Christianity – any part of Christianity – without covering its music, you are missing a critical part of the story. Protestants think of themselves... Read more

Brigham Young and Mitt Romney, Beer and History

Last updated on: August 16, 2012 at 11:04 am By johnturner

How could a Washington Post article discussing President Obama’s campaign beer-drinking not mention the LDS Word of Wisdom? Obviously, Romney’s faith — as well as his wealth — dooms any attempt to convince voters he is an “everyman.” Obama as everyman? If drinking beer at state fairs and small-town diners is all that matters, I suppose he has a strong edge there. Biden sometimes talks as if he’s already had a few. Ryan usually talks as if he needs one.... Read more

What Can We Learn From the David Barton Controversy?

Last updated on: August 15, 2012 at 10:53 am By John Fea

In case you have not heard, last week Thomas Nelson, a Christian publisher based in Nashville, ceased publication of David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson, saying it has “lost confidence in the book’s details.” Since its publication earlier this year, The Jefferson Lies has been attacked by historians and other critics for errors in historical accuracy and interpretation. Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter of Grove City College, neither of them historians, were... Read more

Farewell to My Favorite Used Bookstore

Last updated on: August 14, 2012 at 8:42 am By Thomas Kidd

From Waco it takes about three and a half hours to get to Archer City, Texas, home of Larry McMurtry’s legendary Booked Up. This is my favorite used bookstore in America. Last weekend, McMurtry, the celebrated western novelist and author, most famously, of Lonesome Dove, auctioned off two-thirds of his inventory, mostly to aspiring used booksellers. Happily, Booked Up will continue to operate on a smaller scale. Not that it will be very small, even now: after selling 300,000 books, McMurtry still... Read more

ONE MORE RIVER TO CROSS

Last updated on: August 3, 2012 at 10:35 am By Philip Jenkins

The London Review of Books recently published a wonderful review by Robert Alter of Rachel Havrelock’s intriguing new book, River Jordan: The Mythology of a Dividing Line. I have not yet read the book itself, but I am a huge admirer of Alter’s, and if he praises a book this highly, it’s definitely worth my attention. Havrelock traces the history of shifting ideas of the limits of the Holy Land. Israelite tribes certainly lived across the Jordan, and much Biblical... Read more

MARTIN LUTHER AND ANGELA MERKEL

Last updated on: August 3, 2012 at 10:35 am By Philip Jenkins

Unless you have been living in a very remote Appalachian cave, you will know that the European economy is in deep trouble. The basic problem is that countries with widely divergent economies have formed a common currency zone, and that the resulting strains are threatening to destroy the euro, possibly taking the global banking economy along with it. Very roughly, the more successful countries such as Germany and Finland are Northern European, while the laggards are mainly on the Mediterranean.... Read more

Luther, Cranach, and Me

Last updated on: August 8, 2012 at 12:00 am By johnturner

I became a historian through the Bible and the Reformation. For starters, at a certain point in my youth, reading the historical books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Joshua through Esther) and the Gospels plus Acts was my way of making church services pass by more quickly. The narratives about the past were usually considerably more lively and interesting (wars, diseases, miracles, prophets, plenty of age-inappropriate material) than what was going on in the present. Then at some point in... Read more

Should Historians Cast Judgment on the Past?

Last updated on: August 8, 2012 at 9:29 am By John Fea

As a history professor I often find myself in conversations with students and fellow faculty members about whether or not it is appropriate for historians to cast judgment on people and events from another era. Since I teach at a Christian college, these conversations usually focus on applying the moral teachings of the Bible to past events. I am often accused by my non-historian friends of being too “evenhanded” on a particular subject when I should have used my role... Read more