Lately, social media—particularly Christian social media—has been depressing me. There’s just so much arguing and so much bitterness. Now some things are worth arguing about! But it gets to be a lot, as many people easily descend into nastiness and pettiness. Or just fail to really listen to those who differ, or to try to genuinely understand them, or to give them the benefit of the doubt, or to present the issues with subtlety and precision. But then I remembered... Read more
Chris tells the story of Ethel Ruff, the first — and, in her lifetime, only — woman called and ordained to preach in her conservative Baptist denomination. Read more
Empires give particular religions a vastly greater geographical spread than they might otherwise have had, to the point of taking once-local groups and beliefs, and placing them in a transcontinental scale. That statement might be obvious, but the means by which such diffusion occurs deserve closer examination. What we might miss is just how extensively those religions were transformed in the process. The most conspicuous examples of such a spreading occur when an empire adopts a religion as official, and... Read more
Chris previews the long-postponed next meeting of the Conference on Faith and History, coming to Baylor University at the end of March. As usual, The Anxious Bench will be well represented at CFH 2022. Read more
I have been writing about how empires spread and shape religions. The most obvious feature of that process, perhaps, is in matters of language. Empires diffuse languages, which commonly survive after those empires themselves have faded into oblivion. In turn, transnational or global languages make world religions possible. The Ghost of the Old Roman Language The most famous example of that process is the role of Latin in the growth and diffusion of Christianity, especially in its Roman and Catholic... Read more
On January 27, 1945, the Red Army arrived in the Polish town of Auschwitz, in hot pursuit of the retreating German army. To their surprise, the Russians found something they were not looking for, and did not even know existed — the largest Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz, where at least 1.1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. The Red Army liberated the camp, containing at that point an estimated 9,000 prisoners. Sixty years later, in 2005, the UN General... Read more
I’ll write a more traditional post later in the week, but today let me put on my “blogmeister” cap and update you all on a few things happening here at The Anxious Bench. A Fond Farewell to Kristin Du Mez As she announced here last Thursday, Kristin Du Mez is moving on, in order to focus on following up on the success of her bestselling book, Jesus and John Wayne. While I certainly hope to bring her back from time to... Read more
I have recently completed teaching a study-abroad course with students from both Gordon College (where I used to teach) and Valparaiso University (where I currently teach). Covid certainly presented some difficulties, but we managed. We were hosted by Gordon College’s study-abroad program in Orvieto, Italy. It is an amazing program in a lovely location. Being there again has led me to re-post what I have written about it before. Herewith: American Christian higher education boasts many worthy study-abroad programs. But... Read more
I am currently exploring the role of empires in shaping religion and religions worldwide, and by no means only Christianity. I particularly want to look at the idea of movement, and the various ways that people (and their faiths) travel.. Spreading Faiths If you look at a map of Christianity worldwide, you very soon appreciate the role of bygone empires. The great centers of Christianity owe their origins to successive Christian empires over the past half millennium: the Spanish, Portuguese,... Read more
This is my last post as a regular contributor to the Anxious Bench. If I’m honest, I haven’t exactly been contributing regularly for the past few months, but I put off crafting this farewell post because I was reluctant to make it official. The time has come, though, and so I thought I’d take some time to reflect on my years here at the Anxious Bench. It was Beth Barr who first recruited me tojoin back in the summer of... Read more
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