If you get to name a controversy, then your side is well on the way to winning the contest. That observation occurs to me as I pursue my present book project, on the theme of the great Iconoclast debate that tore apart the Roman/Byzantine Empire of the eighth and ninth centuries. In many ways, that whole affair was not about iconoclasm at all. It was about much more than that, and in fact gets to many issues that still speak... Read more
I have been a reader of the Anxious Bench since its beginning. The first post from Thomas Kidd that caught my attention was Slavery, Historical Heroes, and “Precious Puritans.” So when the Anxious Bench approached me about becoming “blogmeister,” I was thrilled. I immediately felt the weight of responsibility for editing the Anxious Bench, and a little bit of anxiety too, especially concerning what my first post would be. The first post sets a tone. It reflects and projects what... Read more
I am so pleased to welcome Joey Cochran to The Anxious Bench today–not as a guest contributor, as in the past, but as our new blog editor (or blogmeister as we fondly call the position). He is the fourth editor of the religious history blog, following Tim Dalrymple (who dreamed up the blog and served as editor from 2012-2013), Tommy Kidd (2013-2016), and our longest serving blogmeister Chris Gehrz (2016-2022) who just stepped down last month. Chris recently wrote a three-part... Read more
A couple of my long-standing interests recently came together in a very unhappy way. My current book project concerns the Byzantine iconoclasm crisis, and (by means of the icon connection) that speaks to my enthusiasm for Russia and its historic culture and faith. At the same time, I am devastated by the critical struggle currently under way in Ukraine, where Putin’s vicious aggression is aided and abetted by his trained chimpanzees in the Moscow Patriarchate. That church’s prelates have become... Read more
I recently reread a text that I already know well, but encountered it once again in a new setting, and the result was an almighty sense of déjà vu. It actually helps us understand what is going on in the wider world. I last year published a book called A Global History of the Cold War 1945-1991 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Like everyone else writing on that topic, I naturally quoted a key document called the Long Telegram, written by George... Read more
At the end of Freedom Summer 1971, John Perkins called it “the biggest failure in Voice of Calvary history.” Read more
Imagine this scenario: a Person of Prominence who is a devout Christian is praying. This Person of Prominence is a community leader who provides important resources, forms of support, and opportunities that people need and want. There are other people, people who are also Christian, who gather with this Person of Prominence and pray with him, often in highly visible ways. And there are still other people who are present in the community and who do not identify with or... Read more
Crisis pregnancies have profound human costs. There are life-changing consequences for women who find themselves pregnant with a child they did not anticipate and may not feel equipped to care for. Roe v. Wade suggested one way to manage those costs. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization suggested another way. Today, in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, my Twitter feed has been filled with partisans on both sides of the abortion debate expressing either outrage or jubilation at... Read more
I posted about my current book project, Storm of Images, which concerns the Iconoclasm struggle in the Byzantine Empire between about 720 and 850. I argue that this was an extraordinarily important moment in the history of Christianity, with enduring consequences for both east and west. The Council that marks the success of the pro-image cause, the Second Council of Nicea in 787, was the last General Council that is still regarded as valid by both East and West, Catholic... Read more
I am excited to welcome to the Anxious Bench for today’s guest post Samuel L. Young (PhD, Baylor University), a postdoctoral teaching fellow for Baylor’s Department of History. Young’s dissertation, “‘Saint of the Republic’: Martin Luther, Myth, and National Identity in Antebellum America” (May 2022), explores how early Americans used the long-deceased sixteenth-century German reformer to articulate what it meant to be a citizen of the new nation. Young was the 2021 recipient of the Sidney E. Mead Prize from... Read more
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