Hopeful Apocalypse

Last updated on: August 4, 2022 at 10:16 pm By Lisa Clark Diller

“My people are an apocalyptic people. We have resources to help you prepare for the end of times.” This was a sort of tongue-in-cheek greeting I developed for my academic friends, of the liberal or non-religious bent, after the election in 2016. While that year felt traumatic to those who felt sideswiped by the Trump election, the sentiment has only been magnified by the economic, health, environmental, political, and military crises since. And yet, only recently have I felt comfortable... Read more

Welcome Lisa Clark Diller to the Anxious Bench

Last updated on: August 4, 2022 at 4:26 pm By Joey Cochran

I have the pleasure to welcome another new regular contributor to the Anxious Bench, Lisa Clark Diller. Professor Diller teaches at Southern Adventist University in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her specialty is in early modern British studies, and her current research agenda examines religious minority communities and the development of modern liberal democracy. She is currently investigating the strategies of Catholic parents as they passed along their faith to their children in the face of persecution. Her writing has appeared in Church... Read more

Show Them No Mercy: The Bible and Genocide

Last updated on: August 4, 2022 at 8:35 am By Philip Jenkins

And thou shalt consume all the people which the LORD thy God shall deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them: neither shalt thou serve their gods; for that will be a snare unto thee. Deut.7.16 I recently read Charlie Trimm’s book The Destruction of the Canaanites: God, Genocide, and Biblical Interpretation (Eerdman’s 2022). Let me say right away that this particular post does not in any sense constitute a specific response to that book, and is not... Read more

Is There Such a Thing … ?

Last updated on: August 2, 2022 at 8:52 am By Malcolm Foley

If there is one thing that has been drilled into my mind as a historian, it is this: social location matters. A lot. Before I focused my research on lynching, I was deeply committed to doing work on Calvin and the Greek early church. When I found myself discouraged by the glut of Calvin scholarship, I turned to the next best thing: the Puritans! Along this journey, I became enamored with Protestant confessions, particularly the process that Christians went through... Read more

Death to the Patriarchy! The Feminine Face of God

Last updated on: August 2, 2022 at 8:08 am By Beth Allison Barr

I honestly couldn’t decide what to write for today. Should I tackle Kevin DeYoung’s Desiring God article, or Al Mohler declaring that “pastor” in the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 excludes women from pastoral roles (not just senior/lead pastor), or build on Diana Butler Bass’s extraordinary sermon highlighting the even more extraordinary research of Elizabeth (Libbie) Schrader? Instead of making a choice, I decided to write on everything in a new series, “Death to the Patriarchy! How Medieval Christianity Can... Read more

Signs, Wonders, and the Making of Religious History

Last updated on: August 1, 2022 at 11:35 am By Philip Jenkins

If you work on any historical era before quite modern times, you soon get used to the idea of cosmic events and natural disasters being intimately tied to human affairs. From a modern perspective, it takes a real effort of imagination to understand the supernatural justifications that are so often adduced to explain strictly this-worldly actions. Early chroniclers and historians often cite natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, or periods of extreme cold or heat, and calamities such as famine,... Read more

Remembering the Regress of a Righteous Pilgrim of Color | Phillis Wheatley (1753–84)

Last updated on: July 29, 2022 at 1:55 pm By Joey Cochran

Those who are righteous will be long remembered… Their good deeds will be remembered forever. They will have influence and honor. Psalm 112:6b, 9b The historical memory of Phillis Wheatley’s pronounced life has been protracted despite its brief measure of thirty-one years. Many Americans recognize who she is because she is renown as America’s first African-American poet. Beyond that, few are familiar with her poems and correspondence, let alone the story of her auspicious rise and abrupt decline. American history... Read more

Climate Change, Weather Disasters, and Crying Wolf

Last updated on: July 27, 2022 at 8:55 pm By Philip Jenkins

I firmly believe that the climate is changing, the world is warming in response to human actions, and that these developments are deeply alarming for our collective long-term planetary future. I also believe we need to be very careful about how we seek to use current events to prove those facts, and to argue for policies. In the worst case scenario, deploying such events in a misleading or tendentious way risks discrediting the case we are seeking to make. Britain... Read more

“Our Protest Here is in Consequence of the Protest of Luther”: Martin Luther in First-Wave Feminism

Last updated on: July 27, 2022 at 12:45 pm By Andrea L. Turpin

I am delighted to welcome Sam Young back to the Anxious Bench for more of his fascinating research on Luther’s complicated legacy for American women. If you missed his first post, check it out here. As I explored in my previous post, identifying Luther as a liberator of women was hardly an oddity in antebellum America. Often Americans meant liberating from the forced celibacy of the convent into what they thought of as their proper sphere as mother and wife.... Read more

The White Southern Protestants Who No Longer Attend Church

Last updated on: July 25, 2022 at 9:43 pm By Daniel K. Williams

What happens to American politics and culture when white southerners in the Bible belt quit attending church? What religious views do they adopt? How do they vote? And will the mass exodus from church that already seems to be occurring in the South make the country less politically polarized – or more? This question is particularly relevant this summer because of two major news developments: the sex abuse crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention and the reversal of Roe v.... Read more

What does the Bible say about greed?