I have written a good deal in recent years about the impact of climate on religion, about how successive climate crises and disasters have caused wars and famines, and new religious movements have emerged from the ensuing chaos. This is the theme of my recent book Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith: How Changes in Climate Drive Religious Upheaval. To illustrate this idea, and what it means for how we write the history of religion, let me offer one example – not... Read more
“The debate over critical race theory,” reported Christianity Today a few weeks ago, “has landed at Cru, one of the country’s most prominent parachurch ministries.” Cru – formerly Campus Crusade for Christ – is a behemoth in not only the world of American evangelicalism, but around the world. A few statistics suffice. $750 million in annual global revenue (2020). Nearly 20,000 staff members around the world, each relying on a large network of donors. Cru’s former name was misleading. While... Read more
To be honest, I did not think the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting was going to go well. Along with many other evangelical observers, I feared that the representatives from SBC churches (known as “messengers”) would vote last week for leaders and resolutions that split truth and love rather than holding the two together. Some denominations are more at risk of losing truth, but the SBC, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, was more at risk of losing... Read more
Whether U.S. history involves European encounters with Native Americans or enslavement of Africans, Chris urges Americans to embrace complexity and resist fearful attempts to simplify their national past. Read more
I have posted quite a bit on the link between religion and demography. Obviously I don’t want to suggest any kind of mechanistic link here, but the connections are strong. To give an example, let me look at the history of Latin America over the last century or so. And although I touch on other topics, I promise to get back to that core religious theme. If you look at the continent over that time period, then a great many... Read more
On a holiday that one historian says is "tailor-made for history," Chris suggests some ways you can spend Juneteenth learning more about the African American experience. Read more
Throughout history, climate-driven disasters have a driven sudden and revolutionary change in human societies, transforming political, economic and religious orders, and laying a foundation for new structures. Often, these revolutionary epochs have had far reaching religious consequences. I write about this phenomenon at length in my current book, Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith: How Changes in Climate Drive Religious Upheaval, but here let me offer one of the most intriguing and understudied examples I found in that research. Briefly, did such... Read more
This week’s Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting has been widely viewed as a moment of reckoning. With a far-right takeover afoot, with Black pastors threatening to leave the SBC should Mike Stone or Al Mohler be elected president, with Russell Moore’s leaked letters revealing the ugly tactics members of the SBC Executive Committee were accustomed to wielding to consolidate their power and ignore misogyny, abuse, and racism within the SBC, all eyes turned to Nashville. For those of us who... Read more
What would American evangelicalism look like if the southernization of American evangelicalism had never happened, and instead the evangelical fervor of the Second Great Awakening had continued in the North and produced an ongoing legacy of New England-centered global evangelism combined with advocacy for egalitarian-minded social justice? This question has taken on increasing importance this week, after the Southern Baptist Convention narrowly averted a further lurch to the cultural right. In the leadup to the SBC’s annual meeting, it was... Read more
Almost halfway through another tumultous year, Chris reveals what's been most popular so far in 2021 with our readers. Read more
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