A Brief Musing After a Recent Trip to Brazil

Last updated on: May 15, 2023 at 4:24 pm By Joao Chaves

I just returned from a trip to Brazil, which involved research in three major cities: Manaus, São Paulo, and Brasília. My colleagues (Princeton’s Raimundo Barreto and Auburn’s Erica Ramírez) and I are interested, among other things, in underexplored aspects of Christian Nationalism and its transnational nature. Scholars of Christian Nationalism in the U.S. have rightly observed that the phenomenon cannot be dismissed as a fringe project. Research suggests that a significant part of the U.S. population embraces or sympathizes with... Read more

A Tale of Two Coaches: Ted Lasso and Bill McCartney

Last updated on: May 12, 2023 at 8:24 pm By Joey Cochran

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Spoiler Alert: This article works with cultural memes and identity politics from the most recent episode of Ted Lasso. If you haven’t watched it and you love the show, you may wish to read this article after viewing the episode. The wildly popular AppleTV+ show, Ted Lasso, has continued to escalate its identity politics message during season 3. Its most recent episode 9, La Locker Room Aux Folles, has AFC Richmond continue its resurgent winning streak, many thanks to the... Read more

Byzantium, The Greek Language, and the Making of Modern Christianity

Last updated on: May 6, 2023 at 8:05 pm By Philip Jenkins

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Today’s post is about one very specific event, but it gets centrally to the way we write history, and how much attention we should give to key dates and people that at first sight seem to affect only the most rarefied elites. For centuries, access to the Classical languages of Greece and Rome has been a prime distinguishing feature of privileged elites in Europe and the West. Surely, then, we might think, tracing the origins of that cultural phenomenon must... Read more

Discerning Vocation: Walking Away from Academia

Last updated on: May 10, 2023 at 7:43 pm By Nadya Williams

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It seems that whenever I hear Christians talk about the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin and their expulsion from Eden, the conversation revolves around debates on gender roles in marriage and in the church. But there is another monumental significance of the Fall that, I contend, we should be thinking about more. This one has to do with work. Before the Fall, work was a joyous task that Adam and Eve were created to do and enjoy. Their work... Read more

The Evangelical Conversion Narrative of Molly Worthen

Last updated on: May 10, 2023 at 5:37 am By Joey Cochran

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Earlier today, Tuesday May 9, Collin Hansen released an interview with historian Molly Worthen on his podcast, Gospel Bound. What unfolded in the interview was the surprising narrative of Molly Worthen’s evangelical conversion to Christianity. Who Is Molly Worthen? Worthen grew up in Glenn Ellyn in what she described during the interview as a secular home. She completed a Bachelor of Arts at Yale in 2003 and completed her Ph.D. there in 2011. In 2010, she married Michael Morgan,... Read more

The Myth of the Decline of History Education

Last updated on: May 5, 2023 at 11:48 am By Lisa Clark Diller

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The Decline of History Scores The National Assessment of Educational Progress has reported that 8th graders in the United States scored lower on their History and Civics assessment than they have since the Department of Education started testing for this in 1994. Should we panic about this decline and the potential weakening of our civic education? You would think that historians would be the first to lift their voices in outrage. But because of our skills at context and historical... Read more

The Wars After The War: Just What Did End In 1945?

Last updated on: May 5, 2023 at 1:30 pm By Philip Jenkins

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I wrote recently about the year 1453, which marked the Fall of Constantinople, and therefore one of the most often cited events in European history. I suggested, however, that it mattered far less than we usually think. Realistically, historians can’t avoid using significant dates: textbooks, courses, and documentaries have to start and end somewhere. The problem arises when we take those dates of convenience and assume that they really did mark moments of fundamental change. Often, these were critical turning... Read more

Thoughts from Julian of Norwich for Changing Seasons

Last updated on: May 1, 2023 at 8:20 am By Lynneth Renberg

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For me, the first of May always feels like the changing of a season– perhaps because so much of my life has been lived and continues to be lived by the academic calendar. But even for those not living around school schedules, the transition of spring into summer seems to be significant. Maybe it’s just the nicer weather, or the growth of gardens, or the promise of time with friends and loved ones, but it seems that as summer begins,... Read more

Justin Jones, Diane Nash, and the Long Struggle

Last updated on: May 1, 2023 at 8:01 am By Ansley Quiros

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Along with lamentations, the horrific recent shooting at the Covenant School also created a crises of democracy in the Tennessee Legislature. Scores of students marched to the Capitol in downtown Nashville to protest government inaction in the face of mass school shootings, creating a moral and media spectacle. State Representatives Jones, Pearson and Johnson participated in protests, which, under dubious invocations of decorum, got Jones and Pearson, who are Black, expelled. Though they were re-elected and readmitted by their constituents,... Read more

The Myth of 1453 and the Modern Political Right

Last updated on: April 30, 2023 at 6:14 am By Philip Jenkins

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“The Fall of Constantinople is a personal misfortune that happened to all of us only last week.” Those are the closing words of an extraordinarily influential book written in 1973 that most readers of this site will likely not have encountered. The words perfectly illustrate the sizable mythology that gets attached to historical events and dates, and how they echo through later centuries, often in utterly unexpected ways. Last time, I wrote about the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman... Read more