What if the Nones Really Do Herald the Decline of Religion?

Last updated on: July 9, 2021 at 7:41 pm By Philip Jenkins

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the number of Americans who identify with Christianity is declining steadily, while the number of Nones – those who refuse identification with any denomination or faith – is growing sharply. Probably within five years or so, the nation’s largest religious group will be the Nones, as they move steadily ahead of evangelicals and Catholics. Assuming we care about the fate of religion, how worried should we be? Some argue that the churches are... Read more

Religion and the American Revolution

Last updated on: July 8, 2021 at 10:26 am By johnturner

Kate Carté is Associate Professor of History at Southern Methodist University. She’s here to discuss her latest book, Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History, just published by the Omohundro Institute and the University of North Carolina Press. This is a perfect topic for The Anxious Bench! Americans today argue about the extent to which religion contributed to the establishment of the United States and how the framers of American republic envisioned the relationship between Christianity and its government. Furthermore, historians... Read more

Is There a Theological Reason for White Evangelical Racism?

Last updated on: July 6, 2021 at 9:56 pm By Daniel K. Williams

White evangelicals are less likely than any other religious or demographic group in the United States today to believe that Blacks experience structural racial discrimination. But is this blind spot a result of their theology or merely their cultural heritage or some other factor? (BGEA) This was the question that I wish Anthea Butler had addressed more directly in her book White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America. While Butler’s book correctly notes some of the many examples... Read more

The Good Shepherd

Last updated on: July 5, 2021 at 4:01 pm By Chris Gehrz

Not Jesus, but the novel by C.S. Forester that inspired a Tom Hanks WWII movie — both featuring a surprisingly religious protagonist. Read more

Climate Disasters and the Making of Protestant Europe

Last updated on: July 4, 2021 at 6:13 am By Philip Jenkins

I have argued that transformational eras of religious change are often rooted in climate-driven crises, which are manifested in famine, plague, political disasters, and even state failure. I specifically discussed this in the context of the years around 1540, which among other things allowed the establishment and growth of the then-very radical creed of Calvinism. But the later development of that movement owes much – owes everything? – to a later episode of really extreme climate-driven disaster. This post is... Read more

The Pope, the Emperor, and the Venice Myth

Last updated on: June 30, 2021 at 5:56 am By Philip Jenkins

I sometimes fantasize about writing a book called Famous Moments in Church History That Never Happened. Examples of such mythological non-events are easy enough to find, but here is a prime example, and one that for several centuries was incredibly well known and discussed. My current work concerns the reception and (very sizable) impact of Psalm 91 through history. By far the most cited part of that text is verse 13, which promises the believer that “Thou shalt tread upon... Read more

Evangelical Social Concern May Depend on Recovering a Theology of the Church

Last updated on: June 30, 2021 at 10:15 pm By Daniel K. Williams

Why have white evangelicals had a hard time embracing the call for social justice? In previous posts, I have looked at some likely explanations – race, region, and evangelicalism’s individualistic theology, among others. But in today’s post, I want to look at an explanation that may seem a little less obvious but which I think also plays a factor: white evangelicals’ theological view of the church. Perhaps a recovery of a biblical model of the church will be the first... Read more

Rainn Wilson, Dwight Schrute, and the Search for Meaning in Postmodern America

Last updated on: June 30, 2021 at 4:44 pm By David Swartz

"I was disenchanted with things that were organized," says Wilson. Read more

Evangelicals and the Death Penalty

Last updated on: June 28, 2021 at 10:48 pm By Chris Gehrz

Forty-nine years ago today, the Supreme Court of the United States announced its decision in the case of William Henry Furman, sentenced to death in Georgia after he accidentally shot the owner of the home he was burglarizing. “The criminal acts with which we are confronted are ugly, vicious, reprehensible acts,” acknowledged Justice Thurgood Marshall, yet he and four other members of the nation’s highest court not only upheld Furman’s appeal but imposed a moratorium on all executions. The narrow... Read more

“We’re Only Reached Out to in Times of Tragedy”: Sikh Americans and the Telling of U.S. Religious History

Last updated on: November 7, 2022 at 4:21 pm By Melissa Borja

In April, a month after the deadly shooting in Atlanta, eight people were gunned down in a horrific mass shooting at a Fed-Ex facility in Indianapolis. For many people in Indianapolis – including myself, a proud Hoosier and an active member of the Asian American organizing community in Indy – the incident saw the convergence of several problems: not only the ongoing scourge of gun violence, but also the problems of white supremacy and of increased racism and violence directed... Read more