I have been describing the astonishing success of Buddhism across much of Southern and Eastern Asia in the first millennium AD, and how that movement suffered grave setbacks from the ninth century onward. Although Buddhism continued to be a vital cultural force, its loss of influence in India and, to a lesser extent, China, was a real setback. So why did this happen? I will argue that this resulted from the failure of the great empires that had hitherto either... Read more
If you were not terrified yesterday, you were not paying attention. Something very bad indeed happened, and you may not have grasped just why it was so frightening. Vladimir Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine, and that was a catastrophe in its own right. But that was only one part of the story, as Putin also said something chilling. He warned the West that “Whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people, must know that... Read more
Last year, we read reports of one of the great archaeological discoveries of recent years, from the Musi River, in Sumatra. Very rich finds of luxury objects, especially gold, suggest that we are dealing with the lost capital of a long forgotten empire. Srivijaya was a mighty commercial merchant empire of the seas, a thalassocracy, which controlled the Straits of Malacca, and dominated much of what we call Indonesia, Malaysia, and the South China Seas. It held its power and... Read more
As the Russian invasion of the Ukraine begins, I struggle along with so many other Americans as a by-stander, watching horrific violations of human rights unfold across the world. But I am watching this suffering also in my capacities as a military historian, an adult convert to Christianity, and a descendant of both ethnic Russians and Ukrainian Jews. The stories of long-gone Ukrainian Jews, in particular, may not seem readily important, as the world fears a nuclear threat, as well... Read more
Should Christian history make evident Paul's three great virtues: faith, hope, and love? Read more
Is there any way to weave together the cultural materials at hand to withstand what our country is becoming? This might seem like a new question. It is not. It is not even a new question for Americans, as Robert Gross demonstrates in his recent release, The Transcendentalists and their World. In the first half of the nineteenth century, that spiritual-intellectual movement was the solution for some influential writers, like Concord’s Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Those big... Read more
Any long term history of Christianity must pay proper attention to one key turning point, namely the conversion of the Roman Empire to this new faith. We all have a good sense of what happened next, in terms of imperial support and patronage that spread Christianity to all corners of the very extensive world that the Romans knew. Among other factors, the empire created an ideal environment for such diffusion, through a shared language, through the spread of literacy and... Read more
Today we welcome David Nanninga to the Anxious Bench. David is a first year Masters student in the Baylor History department. He is interested in post-WWII political history, specifically 1970s politics and the Carter administrations relationship to white evangelicals. I had the privilege of teaching David in my Women’s History and Theory Seminar in Fall 2021, and he wrote this blog post as one of our seminar assignments. Sacagawea is the face of the $1-dollar coin. She is the only... Read more
“Boycott China’s Winter Olympics?”, asked a Christianity Today headline last week. “Many American Christians Agree.” Well, kinda. CT was reporting on a Pew survey from January 10-17, on American responses to the U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Winter games currently taking place in Beijing, China. True enough, 62% of white evangelicals who had heard anything about the boycott for once agreed (34% strongly) with something the Biden Administration did. But that’s basically identical to the 63% of all respondents who... Read more
Migration is a principal force driving religious change and growth, and I have posted on this theme on several occasions at this site. The basic point about migration is totally uncontroversial, but I want to stress the role of empires in driving and directing that migration. How Imperial Subjects Came Home For Americans, the role of migration in making religion is obvious. All Christian churches on the continent owe their origins to migration, from the fifteenth century onward, and the... Read more
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