I have heard the name Wendell Berry for years, but I have never made the time to read one of his books, either his essays or novels. Upon listening to the excellent podcast The Scandal of Reading about Berry’s novel Jayber Crow, I finally settled on reading it. It is a busy time of the semester, but I am really trying to make space in my schedule to read fiction. At the beginning of the story, there is a particular... Read more
We have a crisis on our hands, and it is the crisis of the evangelical heart. At the center of this crisis is the relationship between the Church and its society. The Church has contributed to making our culture and society, and our society and culture have both enhanced and harmed the effectiveness of Christianity’s expression from one generation to the next. Richard Niebuhr addressed how the church contributed to making our society in his essay, “The Responsibility of the... Read more
When Pope Francis named the Armenian monk Gregory of Narek (c. 951-1003) the thirty-sixth universal doctor of the Catholic Church in 2015, many were caught off guard. Gregory who, from where, joining the company of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas? This was my response too. But reading Gregory, prompted by research trip to Armenia, has convinced me of the pope’s rationale—this and the fact that the Vatican’s actions deliberately coincided with the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide,... Read more
In 1789 a sailor who had been enslaved, bought his freedom, and become part of the abolitionist movement penned his autobiography: The Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African. This was a very effective campaign tactic for the abolition movement and for convincing the English-speaking Atlantic that the slave trade was cruel and should be abandoned. Equiano was an evangelical Christian as well, and the book functions as a spiritual autobiography in which he traces the ways that... Read more
This post concerns a prayer of which I am fond, and which should be better known. It also offers a good argument for liturgy, for set forms and words echoing through the centuries. But above all, it supplies an ideal way to approach the Lent season. The Collect for Purity I am writing here about a kind of prayer called a collect. In all the liturgically oriented churches, a service begins with a number of standard rituals, declarations, and prayers,... Read more
Unlike a number of my colleagues at the Anxious Bench, I’m not currently a professor. I’m an administrator, spending my days as an advisor to Baylor’s president, Linda Livingstone, considering issues of equity, justice, and community engagement. Throughout the last few years, I had the privilege of working on a project that will shape Baylor’s future by more justly articulating and reckoning with its past. On February 23, 2024, we gathered on Founders Mall on Baylor’s campus to break ground... Read more
Framed as just another part of the long and interesting reign of Margrete I, the panel pictured below from the Akershus Fortress Museum discusses religion’s role in policy during her later reign, after the dynastic disputes of the late 14th century had been settled and the kingdoms of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden united under a single crown. It was perhaps meant as a throwaway statement during the broader narrative, but the reference to a women’s fund for those ‘violated or... Read more
Several weeks ago, while browsing at my local public library, I came across Rosaria Butterfield’s new book, Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age. I hadn’t heard of it. But like so many other evangelicals, I had heard of Butterfield. I read The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith (2012), her popular conversion narrative, and listened to her narrate her account of the winsome, generous Rev. Ken and Floy Smith, of persistent... Read more
I recently posted about the superb new Cambridge History of Ancient Christianity (henceforward CHAC), edited by my two Baylor colleagues Bruce Longenecker and David Wilhite. I have been exploring the book in some detail to prepare for a forthcoming symposium we are holding around it at Baylor University on March 27 (See the full event program here). Reading the book gave me a lot of ideas not just about the specific essays in that book, but more generally about the... Read more
I don’t often think about Marabel Morgan, but when I do, it’s while watching the Super Bowl. If you’ve heard of Marabel Morgan, you are probably either a religious historian or an evangelical of a certain age. No longer a common name in the American church, Morgan was a superstar in the 1970s. In 1973, Morgan published The Total Woman. Here’s historian Emily Suzanne Johnson’s description of this wildly popular book, from her own thoughtful and balanced work This is... Read more
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