I am currently working on the relationship between empires and the emergence and development of religions. The problems of actually defining empires are quite intense. So what is an empire? At some point, we might conclude that an empire is much like pornography, in that you know it when you see it. There are plenty of attempts at definition. One excellent survey of the topic is in Stephen Howe’s concise Empire: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2002). Howe... Read more
This year marks the centennial anniversary of one of the most famous sermons from the culture wars of the 1920s: Harry Emerson Fosdick’s “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” The 34-year-old Fosdick, whose eloquent presentation of the modernist cause had already landed him one of the most prestigious pulpits in the nation, was eager to lead the charge against the fundamentalists, who he warned would destroy Christianity if they succeeded in wresting control of the Northern Baptist and Presbyterian denominations from the... Read more
On why the 1990s racial reconciliation moment was less groundbreaking than it appeared to some observers at the time Read more
According to a new survey, the term Protestant is becoming much less common among younger Christians. Chris considers why he still finds at least some of his religious identity in Protestantism. Read more
American Girl recently announced its newest doll of the year: Corinne Tan, a Chinese American girl who lives in Colorado and fights anti-Asian racism. “We knew it was important for Corinne’s story to show the unfortunate rise in anti-Asian sentiment across the U.S. since the pandemic,” an American Girl spokeswoman said, according to the New York Times. Like many others, I’m grateful that American Girl created this doll. As a mother, I’m thankful to show my daughter a storybook... Read more
Over the next few columns, I am going to be talking about a large topic, namely that of empire. Specifically, I will discuss the role of empires in making and reshaping world religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. As you can guess, this all grows out of a book project I am currently thinking through. Imperialism, colonialism, racism …. The linkages between the three seem all too obvious, and agonizing. But that does not mean that we should not know... Read more
Today we’re honored to welcome to the Bench Jehu J. Hanciles, D.W. & Ruth Brooks Professor of World Christianity and director of the World Christianity program at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Jehu’s most recent book, Migration and the Making of Global Christianity (Eerdmans, 2021), was recently named Book of the Year in the Missions & Global Church category by Christianity Today. Today he shares a guest post about the impact of immigration on religious change in the United States.... Read more
Inspired by Chris’s excellent annual overviews of the themes in our blogging, I decided to look back over my own posts. I have been privileged to be a part of this merry band of bloggers since Summer 2019 and I’ve published around 30 posts. The start of a new year seemed like a good time to take stock of what it is that I seem to care about: 1. Women in the American Church This one comes as no surprise... Read more
“Why should we read — and write — biographies?” It seemed like a good question to ask halfway through the adult class I taught last month at a Presbyterian church. I’d spent the first session summarizing key events and themes from my spiritual biography of Charles A. Lindbergh, so before we dug any deeper, I wanted to think more closely about the appeal and purposes of that genre of writing. Biographies are generally popular with all sorts of readers. (My... Read more
Across much of Africa, we encounter the familiar figure of the Nganga, a word that appears in many slightly differing guises. The Nganga is a spiritual healer, who draws on supernatural powers. No reasonable person would today apply the ugly term that Western colonialists used for such people, which was “witch-doctors.” But what exactly do we call the spiritual system that they represent? Going far beyond the specific instance of the nganga, this is actually a very difficult question, with... Read more
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