Our blogmeister says farewell after six years and nearly 400 posts at The Anxious Bench. Read more
Our blogmeister says farewell after six years and nearly 400 posts at The Anxious Bench. Read more
I have been posting about my current book project, Storm of Images, which concerns the Iconoclasm in the Byzantine empire back in the eighth and ninth centuries. At first sight, that might seem like an arcane topic, but actually, it is hard to think of anything more topical today, or controversial, than iconoclasm or image breaking. If you have been alive and conscious these past few years, you know all about iconoclasm and the issues it raises. Image smashing arises... Read more
“So, what are you working on right now? “I’m doing a book called Storm of Images. It’s about Byzantine Iconoclasm” “Um, seriously? Why?” Well, that wasn’t the ideal reaction I expected from a friend at my church, but it did raise an interesting point about how I explain what I am doing. I am currently writing a book – under contract to Baylor University Press – which in my view, deals with some of the most important issues in the... Read more
Every year, it seems, at least one new English Bible translation appears. Some make a big splash and start controversies (e.g., the TNIV and the ESV). Others arrive more quietly, but their sheer number still raises this question from church-goers and Bible readers: what is the best translation to use? And a related question: do we even need more English translations of the Bible? Prompting my reflections on these questions is this year’s new kid on the block, the FNV... Read more
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
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