This is me making a mea culpa, and actually profiting from the process. I made an error, and learned from it, and it sent me off on some really intriguing directions. As a result, I think I now have some important things to say about two of the great social, cultural and religious crises in human history. I work a lot on climate history, and the role of climate-related disasters in riving political and religious change. This was the theme... Read more
“Now this is the real McCoy, rooted in deep personal experience! … I’ve always suspected that the future was with these Evangelical guys.” Read more
Today I am so pleased to welcome back to Lynneth Miller Renberg to the Anxious Bench. Lynneth is an assistant professor of history at Anderson University, with teaching and research interests in gender, dance, emotion, and lay religion. Her monograph, Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300-1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith was awarded the Founders’ Prize from the Sixteenth Century Society and is forthcoming with the Boydell Press in November 2022. She is also editor of The Cursed Carolers in... Read more
In my last post, I mentioned that I would write about the embattled evangélicos who are not part of the overwhelming conservative majority in Latin America. More specifically, I said I would address some of the translated works that continue to empower evangélicos in Brazil who attempt to resist the sharper edges of Brazilian theopolitical conservatism. It is this type of conservatism that, among other things, helped embolden president Jair Bolsonaro and his allies. But before talking about translations used... Read more
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I am currently writing a children’s chapter book about St. Juan Diego for Ignatius Press’s popular Vision series. “Writing” is a generous term, since between launching the Great Books Program en español for the Angelicum Academy last week (it went so well!) and homeschooling my three children (K, 2nd, and 4th), I am advancing slowly on the manuscript. Writing this post has reignited my enthusiasm for the project. According to Catholic tradition, Juan... Read more
At this moment, in late 2022, where in the world is the most destructive war raging? If you said “Ukraine,” you would almost certainly be wrong. In terms of human carnage and devastation, the answer would far more likely be in Ethiopia, the storm center of what is already being described as a new “Great War of Africa…. Africa’s next World War.” (The description comes from analyst Cameron Hudson). Paying attention to that war is crucially important for anyone interested... Read more
“Most mornings during the school year, after the breakfast dishes have been put away, the books come out on the kitchen table, and another day at the Williams homeschool begins,” I wrote four years ago for the now defunct but very much missed online journal Eidolon. In explaining my reasons, I added: “People often ask why I homeschool, and why I choose to do so in the midst of the very busy schedules that my husband and I keep. My stock... Read more
W. E. B. Du Bois conveyed the notion of double-consciousness in his essay “Of Our Spiritual Strivings,” which is the first chapter in a collection of his essays called The Souls of Black Folks. He said: It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness,—an American,... Read more
[This past September 11, I was asked by a new interfaith center on Valparaiso University’s campus to participate in an event remembering that terrible day. Participants were asked to speak from our own religious tradition and offer a prayer or two drawn from it. Herewith my reflections/prayers on this occasion.] Like practically everyone alive then and old enough to remember, I have clear memories of that day. A beautiful, cloudless September morning. Not a cloud in the sky. Pure, quiet,... Read more
On a recent trip to New York City to binge on musical theater, my companion and I fit in the Broadway and West End hit Six. It was excellent fun. As someone who teaches on the Tudors each year, I found myself wanting to explain the historical jokes to my friend and trying to decide whether the musical was an asset to those of us who do early modern history as we try to convince the world of our... Read more
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