It was early Spring 2021. I picked up an advance reader copy (ARC) of The Making of Biblical Womanhood and walked down the hall. “Dean Lyon,” I said, knocking on the open door. “I don’t know what is going to happen, but I think you should know what I have written.” Professor of Sociology, Dean of the Graduate School, and Vice Provost at Baylor University, Larry Lyon has been my direct boss since 2018. He took the book from me... Read more
A new book argues that we have misunderstood prohibition, casting it as a global movement for political and social reform whose supporters included Christians. Read more
I have been talking about the very broad themes that unite empires throughout history. I’ll continue that here, and offer some specific applications from the imperial encounters of one of the best known examples, namely the Hebrew people. Empires come in very different forms, but they have certain very broad characteristics in common, and those common features are what I will be discussing in coming posts. Let me list them in very rough form here. I offer ten broad points,... Read more
I am currently working on the relationship between empires and the emergence and development of religions. The problems of actually defining empires are quite intense. So what is an empire? At some point, we might conclude that an empire is much like pornography, in that you know it when you see it. There are plenty of attempts at definition. One excellent survey of the topic is in Stephen Howe’s concise Empire: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2002). Howe... Read more
This year marks the centennial anniversary of one of the most famous sermons from the culture wars of the 1920s: Harry Emerson Fosdick’s “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” The 34-year-old Fosdick, whose eloquent presentation of the modernist cause had already landed him one of the most prestigious pulpits in the nation, was eager to lead the charge against the fundamentalists, who he warned would destroy Christianity if they succeeded in wresting control of the Northern Baptist and Presbyterian denominations from the... Read more
On why the 1990s racial reconciliation moment was less groundbreaking than it appeared to some observers at the time Read more
According to a new survey, the term Protestant is becoming much less common among younger Christians. Chris considers why he still finds at least some of his religious identity in Protestantism. Read more
American Girl recently announced its newest doll of the year: Corinne Tan, a Chinese American girl who lives in Colorado and fights anti-Asian racism. “We knew it was important for Corinne’s story to show the unfortunate rise in anti-Asian sentiment across the U.S. since the pandemic,” an American Girl spokeswoman said, according to the New York Times. Like many others, I’m grateful that American Girl created this doll. As a mother, I’m thankful to show my daughter a storybook... Read more
Over the next few columns, I am going to be talking about a large topic, namely that of empire. Specifically, I will discuss the role of empires in making and reshaping world religions, including Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam. As you can guess, this all grows out of a book project I am currently thinking through. Imperialism, colonialism, racism …. The linkages between the three seem all too obvious, and agonizing. But that does not mean that we should not know... Read more
Today we’re honored to welcome to the Bench Jehu J. Hanciles, D.W. & Ruth Brooks Professor of World Christianity and director of the World Christianity program at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Jehu’s most recent book, Migration and the Making of Global Christianity (Eerdmans, 2021), was recently named Book of the Year in the Missions & Global Church category by Christianity Today. Today he shares a guest post about the impact of immigration on religious change in the United States.... Read more
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