This post concerns a painting I first encountered many years ago, and which has remained something of a guilty pleasure. It’s not necessarily a great work of art, but it is very revealing for the religious and cultural thought of the world from which it comes, namely the mid-nineteenth century. It says a great deal about how Protestants and Catholics defined and demonized each other in that era, and long afterward, and how religion spilled over into understanding global affairs.... Read more
Every Sunday morning in the small-town Georgia PCA church where my husband and I have been members now for almost seven years, if you were to take a stroll down the hallway in the children’s ministry wing, you might see something that is not typical in most churches of any denomination: you will spot at least one man in the nursery, rocking a baby or reading a book to a toddler. Several more men are distributed among the children’s Sunday... Read more
Yesterday, as I was enjoying a light breakfast of fried eggs, toast, and a Nesspresso cappuccino in our kitchen, I stumbled upon the most curious tweet. Initially when I saw the tweet, I became puzzled. Why? Well, the tweet consisted of a quote attributed to Jonathan Edwards, along with a portrait depicting a youthful, handsome, man composing a document at a stationary desk. While the portrait depicted a genteel man from the eighteenth-century, I knew it certainly was not a... Read more
The windswept Curonian Spit, on the Baltic Sea, affords a choice spot for reflecting on the turbulent twentieth century. It is part of Kaliningrad, Russia’s western exclave, though Lithuania possesses its northern end. From this spot, the mind naturally turns to the complexities of history, and the darkening geopolitics of our time. From Klaipeda, Lithuania’s port city, it is accessible only by ferry. The narrow land strip, like the Baltic states as a whole, has witnessed the rise and fall... Read more
I’m spending 10 weeks out of the country this summer, either for work or pleasure or to fulfill family obligations. And I’m embracing the fact that for most of that time, I’m acting as a tourist. I’ve never been one of those tourists from the US who wanted to hide that they were a foreigner. I’ve always assumed my clothing, demeanor, and conversation screamed “English-speaking North American” whenever I’m traveling out of my continent or hemisphere. I use maps, consult... Read more
I have been posting on Late Byzantine history, focusing on the different ways in which such histories can be written. I have for instance tried to justify looking at the era from the point of view of intellectual elites, because that would be so critical to the larger development of Christianity ever since. Today, I will be using the case of one elite family, because those few elite individuals cast such a long and unavoidable historical shadow. Surprisingly, the story... Read more
Parenting has been something that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. With a recently mobile toddler in our household, the question of how to teach a little one boundaries has felt very pressing (especially as this particular little one seems to have a knack for heading straight for dangerous situations). Perhaps because this has been something that I’ve been thinking so much about lately, some of the content from the new Amazon miniseries “Shiny Happy People” has hit particularly... Read more
Today I have the great privilege of speaking with Dr. Lloyd Barba, Assistant Professor of Religion at Amherst College about his wonderful new book and his insightful, compassionate research. Lloyd! You know you’re one of my favorite people. But you are also a completely brilliant scholar–thank you for talking with me today. Ansley, your warmth and demeanor did not really allow me to sit on the anxious bench of friendship for very long. We became friends within minutes! The feeling... Read more
Over on my substack, Past and Piety, I have started a series called Fragments from My Evangelical Mind. The project is part memoire of my evangelical experiences and part history of the last 25 years of evangelicalism. In fragments, I work with areas of evangelical doctrine, as well as features of its culture, that trace the story of how evangelicalism, itself, has become fragmented. Currently, the fragments I am working with are related to evangelical summer church camp experiences. I... Read more
Recently, I was working on a couple of totally unrelated projects relating to British history and culture – one about imperial history, the other on an early twentieth century literary theme. In both cases, I would have missed indispensable information if I did not understand the way aristocratic names, titles, and families work within that British system through the centuries – and in this instance, “British” includes colonial and imperial history, definitely extending to colonial America, and India. Once you... Read more
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