Spend the month of July in New York working on a research or writing project related to one of the themes outlined below, with access to libraries and research facilities at Columbia University, Union, Auburn, and Jewish Theological Seminaries. Application deadline is March 1, 2013. The 2013 CrossCurrents Research Colloquium, in partnership with Auburn Theological Seminary, will explore several themes.  Applications from scholars, theologians, activists and artists focusing on one or more of these topics will be accepted: A. LGBT Theology: Projects that... Read more

Co-Ed Combat and Cultural Cowardice, an article written by John Piper in 2007, has resurfaced in light of the U.S. military’s decision to let women serve in combat. I’m posting part of it here not because I want to pick a fight with Piper, or discuss women in combat (I don’t love the idea of anyone in combat), but because it gives an excellent overview of one of the primary differences between egalitarian and complementarian thought: should we function according... Read more

John Fea’s recent Anxious Bench post, “Where Are the Studies of Twentieth-Century Black Evangelicalism?” raised an excellent question, one that confronted me over a decade ago as a graduate student in Dennis Dickerson’s Religion and the Civil Rights seminar.  At that time, works on twentieth-century African American religious history and the “black church” were readily available.  Works on twentieth-century American evangelicalism could also be obtained easily.  But rarely did the former employ the term evangelical or the latter include anything of... Read more

Today, I found myself in the middle of some serious, if not heated discussions via text message and facebook and twitter (what’s new?) about the Dodge “God Made A Farmer” ad during the Super Bowl. Apparently, asking one simple question about the commercial apparently is enough to offend some people to “unfriend” me or whatever. I care not. Here’s what I do care about. First things first, if you enjoyed the ad, no I don’t think you’re racist or whatever.... Read more

The “8th Day” of which Paul Harvey speaks, must have occurred in the 1950s and 60s with the end of (widespread) sharecropping. Last night, I was quite offended by Ram’s “God Made a Farmer” commercial during the Super Bowl. Well-meaning as it may have been, this commercial – airing during Black History Month, no less – made no mention whatsoever of the American Institution of Slavery. How could such an oversight be made? Industrial farming was built on the backs of... Read more

A few weeks before last November’s election, a yard sign popped up in front of First Baptist Church of West Harwich, Massachusetts, not far from my Cape Cod home. “Scott Brown He’s For Us,” it read, giving a thumbs up to the incumbent Republican senator in his race with Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren (who eventually won). Closer to my home, the Roman Catholic parish Corpus Christi in Sandwich, Massachusetts, displayed a yard sign opposing Massachusetts Question 2, which would have... Read more

My maternal grandparents lived in a small northeast-Texas town with a communal zeitgeist more aboriginal than modern. Everyone believed. “Is there really a God?” would have been as silly a question as “Is there really air?” While separation of church and state was non-negotiable — no one would tell them what to believe — that was not to say that individual or community life should, or even could, be divided between secular and religious spheres. The Psalmist had said it, “Wherever I... Read more

Televangelist Creflo Dollar is famous for his promises that God wants every aspect of life to prosper. Especially the family. His book series entitled The Successful Family tries show readers not only how to find domestic bliss, but how to build families that show God’s principles at work. But in this conservative religious world obsessed with “family values,” nothing seems harder on the family than the prosperity gospel. Last week, charges were dismissed against Creflo Dollar for allegations that he choked his... Read more

by Crystal St. Marie LewisR3 Contributor*This post first appeared in the Crystal St. Marie Lewis Blog Here’s a fact about me that I’m sure you don’t know: I don’t watch a lot of movies. This means that I’m woefully behind the times when it comes to movie-related pop culture. When I occasionally experience a hankering for a good movie, I either consult my trusty library of oldie-but-goody DVDs or I hit up a website like Crackle, where fairly recent titles... Read more

From, The Pastor and Professor: Season 2, Episode 2 Read more