I usually wait until the end of June to post a mid-year report on what’s been most popular at The Anxious Bench. For reasons I’ll explain next week, I’m going to move up that update to today. Without further ado, here are our ten most-read posts thus far into 2022, plus the most popular posts from each contributor and a few suggestions of my own for posts that deserve a second look. The Anxious Bench Top 10 for the First... Read more
A review of James L. Heft’s The Future of Catholic Higher Education (Oxford University Press, 2021) During the years that radicals suppressed France’s 22 universities after the French Revolution, America’s first Catholic university began operations. Georgetown University, which was shielded from government meddling by the US Constitution’s First Amendment, began teaching its first students in 1792. To accommodate waves of Catholic immigrants in the 19th century, intrepid monks and missionaries went on to found many more schools: Saint Louis University... Read more
I have an observation, and a question. Pilgrimage is enjoying an astonishing revival in the contemporary West, including in countries that we think of as very secular – especially in Europe. But as far as I can tell, the phenomenon is nothing like as booming in the US. Why might that be? And why, specifically, does the United States have no great pilgrimage centers on European lines, comparable to Lourdes or Fátima or Compostela? I stress from the outset that... Read more
Today I welcome Stephanie Peek to The Anxious Bench. Dr. Peek completed her PhD in Religion from Baylor University this past spring and was a former Baptist College and University Scholar (BCU) during her time at Baylor. She also served as department head of Religious Studies at Judson College before the closure of the school. For more than 180 years, Judson College existed as a Baptist University educating young women from around the world. The institution was dissolved suddenly during the summer of... Read more
Chris talks to Eboo Patel about his new book, We Need to Build, and his vision for an interfaith America. Read more
We hear a great deal about the likely effects of climate change, and what it means for the rising seas. That is a terrifying prospect, which at its worst offers a vision of a quite literal apocalypse. I am in no sense trying to deny, undermine, or minimize that here. But I am going to take that vision of rising seas to explain some dramatic recent scientific. findings that really do have significant consequences for history, and religion. Briefly, through... Read more
This coming Sunday, June 5, the church celebrates the great feast of Pentecost, with all its rich imagery of fire from heaven, tongues of flame, and speaking in tongues. In the Western tradition at least, the day marks the church’s birthday. In old English, it was called Whit (White, or Holy) Sunday. Italians traditionally called it Pascha Rossa, Red Easter, giving some idea of its significance in the church calendar. In the Orthodox churches, the feast carries a significance second... Read more
These hunted people were my people. Read more
What will happen if the Supreme Court reverses Roe v. Wade next month and gives states the power to set their own abortion policy? Many pro-life advocates believe that the end of Roe will be the key to saving unborn lives – the holy grail they’ve sought for decades. And many reproductive rights advocates expect it to lead to a horrific era of dangerous self-abortions and state policing of women’s bodies. In reality, though, the practical results of the Supreme... Read more
Historians have long argued that American evangelicalism is a transatlantic religious movement. However, according to Helen Jin Kim, that’s only half the story. Kim, who is Assistant Professor of American Religious History at Emory University, explained that “it simply is not possible to understand evangelicalism without looking at transnational linkages and movement across the Pacific, especially when we move into the twentieth century.” In her view, scholars must “take seriously the importance of writing transpacific American religious history.” This topic is the... Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In