I have been posting about the Bible’s genocidal texts. In my experience, many Christians who otherwise know the Bible well scarcely know about these texts, and if they do, they doubt their authenticity. There are reasons for that, and I would argue that we need to change matters. My Episcopal church uses its lectionary to decide what particular readings it will use throughout the year, but those texts often have what seem like strange omissions. In one cycle, we work... Read more
I am currently in the process of finalizing revisions of my book, Cultural Christians in the Early Church, under contract at Zondervan. The story that is the subject of this essay is a theory that ultimately got cut from the book, because there simply is not enough evidence to prove it with certainty. It is, nevertheless, a thought-provoking exercise. Put simply, I think that it is possible that Lydia, whom we meet in Acts 16, played a role in bringing... Read more
Last month, I enjoyed attending the Baylor Institute for the Study of Religion’s virtual conference, “Evangelicals on Their Past: Studies in the History of Evangelical Historiography,” organized by David Bebbington. The overarching research question Bebbington returned to regarded the legitimacy of confessional histories and their distinction from professional histories. As I mulled over the presentations, I, too, wondered about my perception of the making of the evangelical past. As the conference concluded, the ethical dimensions and implications of evangelical history occupied my mind.... Read more
A few weeks ago, I delivered the J.M. Dawson Fall Lecture at Baylor University titled “For Jesus, Country, and Robert E. Lee: Not Your Momma’s History of Baptist Missions.” The lecture built on my latest book, The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South, and showed examples of encounters between missionaries and locals in Brazil to demonstrate how missionary racial imagination impacted evangelical missions in Latin America. One of the examples of missionary behavior that I used in the lecture... Read more
Recently the Conference on Faith and History hosted a panel on witch hunts, both in history and in the contemporary world. We found ourselves asking the question—why is there a perennial interest in witchcraft history and the study of persecution of witches for both our students and the reading/watching public? Why is this so attractive to us? What seems clear is that we like stories with clear villains and victims and the inquisition and witch hunts seem like they... Read more
If you are a serious qualified scholar of the New Testament, you can ignore this post. If, though, you are a regular non-specialist citizen interested in such matters, this might be of use. I’ll be addressing one very specific topic, and then a much larger question about how anyone can find information about a vast range of topics. I’ll describe three or four invaluable resources. Jesus Was a Carpenter? When Jesus goes to Nazareth, the crowds are amazed by his... Read more
Today we welcome a guest contribution from Dr. Jacob Randolph. Jacob Randolph, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Religion at Baylor University. He is a cultural and religious historian whose research focuses on imagination, gender, and identity formation in medieval and early modern religious communities. His publications appear in Church History, Baptist History & Heritage, and Church History & Religious Culture. His recent article, “Tough and Tender: Theology and Masculinity in the 1991 Baptist Hymnal,” was... Read more
A shorter version of this was published last week with the Political Theology Network symposium on White Evangelicals and Right Wing Populism under the title “Where Does Evangelical Theology Lead?”. I am grateful that I was given permission to update and repost it here. I encourage you to read the other work in the symposium by Marcia Pally, Philip Gorski, Samuel Perry, David Gushee, and Khyati Joshi. Lastly, even if you read the original version of this essay last week, I... Read more
Isaac, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. It’s so good to get to learn from you, especially at an exciting moment in your scholarly life. Your new book The Other Evangelicals: A Story of Liberal, Black, Progressive, Feminist and Gay Christians—and the Movement that Pushed them Out is coming out with Eerdman’s Press this Spring. Why did you decide to write this book? Thanks for interviewing me! After working on this project for many years... Read more
The British Guardian just published a really excellent essay that should be required reading for anyone interested in the future of Global/World Christianity, and indeed for the world’s religious futures. It’s by Howard W. French, and it’s called “Megalopolis: How Coastal West Africa Will Shape The Coming Century”. I am guessing this is an extract from a future book. The article focuses on the stretch of coast between roughly Lagos and Abidjan, which incorporates portions of the five countries of... Read more
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