Martin Luther and “Shiny Happy People”: Reflections on Parenting, God, and Reformations

Last updated on: June 6, 2023 at 8:57 am By Lynneth Renberg

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

Interview with Dr. Lloyd Barba

Last updated on: June 5, 2023 at 8:29 am By Ansley Quiros

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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

Are Your Kids Safe at Evangelical Summer Church Camps?

Last updated on: June 2, 2023 at 8:32 am By Joey Cochran

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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

Why Historians Really Need To Know How Aristocracy Worked

Last updated on: June 13, 2023 at 10:07 am By Philip Jenkins

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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

Echoes from Ecuador: Listening to C. René Padilla

Last updated on: May 30, 2023 at 1:59 pm By Guest Contributor

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Today we welcome Dr. Nathan Cartagena, an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College. His teaching and scholarship focus on race, racism, critical race theory, military ethics, and Thomas Aquinas. A Cosmic Awakening I grew up with a truncated gospel. Pastors, youth leaders, and Sunday school teachers proclaimed the same message: “The gospel is the good news that Jesus died for sinners”—the end. Family members, whether Anglo or Boricua, repeated this creed. This was our common tongue. It wasn’t until... Read more

The Profit of Paranoia

Last updated on: May 30, 2023 at 2:11 pm By Guest Contributor

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Today we welcome a guest post from Jared Stacy, who is a PhD candidate in Theological Ethics at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. His research focuses on evangelicalism in the United States, right-wing politics, and neo-orthodox theology. Previously, he pastored in the United States both in New Orleans and near Washington D.C.. Currently, he lives in Scotland with his wife, Stevie, and their three kids. When I tell people I’m researching conspiracy theory and white US evangelicalism, the reactions... Read more

Performing the Past: 100 Years of Friars, Native People, and Injustice at the Ramona Bowl

Last updated on: May 26, 2023 at 2:21 pm By Verónica A. Gutiérrez

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The Franciscan friar, standing before a low, whitewashed ranch house, raised his hand in blessing and his voice in prayer, “En el nombre del Padre y del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo. Amén.” A crowd of ranchers, servants, native people, and women wearing shoulder-length white or black lace mantillas bowed their heads and made the Sign of the Cross reverently, as did my 9-year-old daughter beside me, as she has done so many times in prayer. Seeing her, I began... Read more

Pentecost, Resurrection, and the Chasm of History

Last updated on: May 23, 2023 at 7:45 pm By Philip Jenkins

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This coming Sunday marks the feast of Pentecost. In connection with that, I am posting a substantially revised version of an offering of mine at this site some years ago. As I’ll suggest, the astonishing events that we read about on that first Pentecost were, at one time, regarded as even more critical than we now think of them. Specifically, I will argue that when early Christians first told that dramatic tale, it was as a Resurrection appearance, just as... Read more

A Christian Woman for Polarized Times: Nancy Koester on Sojourner Truth

Last updated on: May 23, 2023 at 11:15 pm By Andrea L. Turpin

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I am delighted to welcome Nancy Koester to the Anxious Bench today to discuss her new biography of Sojourner Truth, We Will Be Free: The Life and Faith of Sojourner Truth (Eerdmans). Koester holds a PhD in church history and has taught at both the college and seminary levels. She is ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Her work focuses on nineteenth-century American history, especially the antislavery movement, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. She is inspired by... Read more

The Secret of Tim Keller’s Christian Apologetics

Last updated on: May 23, 2023 at 10:35 am By Daniel K. Williams

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When I was losing my faith fourteen years ago, Tim Keller’s writings and sermons gave me a new understanding of the gospel and a restored confidence in the truth of the Christian message. I know that I’m not alone in this. I have met a number of people who have said that Keller helped them return to faith, discover Christian faith for the first time, or gain an increased confidence in the faith they already possess. Although Keller was a... Read more