In the minds of many Southerners, the capture of New Orleans on April 25, 1862, by Union forces was more than simply a troubling military loss. It also raised the disturbing possibility that divine punishment was being inflicted on a spiritually wayward and sinful Confederacy. The loss of the South’s most important port and largest city had followed on the heels of the loss of Tennessee’s Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in February and the ignominious retreat from Shiloh in... Read more

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Harvard President Drew Faust today announced the appointment of Jonathan L. Walton as Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, effective July 1. A recently tenured professor of religion and society at Harvard Divinity School, Walton focuses in his research on the intersections of religion, politics, and media culture. Walton is an ordained Baptist minister with Ph.D. and master of divinity degrees from Princeton Theological Seminary, and has preached actively while building his academic career.... Read more

by Richard Beck In a recent post I wrote about my leading a study on the book of Revelation at a local prison. In that post I discussed how one of the themes of Revelation is the contrast between two cities–Babylon and the New Jerusalem–and how the pastoral aim of Revelation is to call the people of God to “come out” from Babylon. In this post I’d like to think a bit about one of the problems regarding how this... Read more

Atheists are enjoying three things that we have not had the privilege of enjoying since the advent of religious belief became the evolutionary norm in our species. Those are the three basic human desires I have been referring to. To be understood, to be heard and to belong. As we increase in these areas, it stands to reason that we are stealing some of the thunder from the fundamentalists. Not to be outdone, and in fear of being undone, they... Read more

Flip through the cable channels for long enough, and you’ll inevitably find the apocalypse. On Discovery or National Geographic or History you’ll find shows like MegaDisasters, Doomsday Preppers, or The Last Days on Earth chronicling, in an hour of programming, dozens of ways the world might end: a gamma ray burst from a nearby star peeling away the Earth’s ozone layer like an onion; a mega-volcano erupting and plunging our planet into a new ice age; the magnetic poles reversing.... Read more

On Civic Learning: Rhetoric, Public Address, Political Division In times of global and domestic strife, the study of public address assumes more importance than ever. What makes for productive, civically useful knowledge of political controversy? How can we tap this knowledge in order to approach differences more wisely and argue with each other more eloquently? In September 2012, over thirty national leaders in the study of rhetoric and public address will convene in Memphis to discuss how we might chart... Read more

by Robyn Henderson-EspinozaRhetoric Race and Religion Contributorfrom: iRobyn|iWitness Culture|iWrite I’ve resisted the impulse to blog about my recent achievement (becoming ABD). I’m sort of blogging about it now, but am rather wanting to talk about one of my experiences today that was a “first.” I was introduced to as Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Ph.D. Candidate for the first time today. It was a great feeling, and I enjoyed being on the other side of “student.” While I am in the beginning stages... Read more

The perplexing circumstances surrounding the brutal murder of a young mother, Shaima Alawadi, has had the Muslim American community abuzz recently. As her daughter purportedly found Alawadi’s body with a note stating, “go back to your country, you terrorist,” many rushed to label the incident as a ‘hate crime,’ even attempting to demonstrate a link between her death and that of Trayvon Martin, the 17 year old shot by neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman. Those attempting to link both cases claim... Read more

Martin Luther King, Jr., often said that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning was the most segregated hour of the week. More than fifty years have passed since King’s assassination, and yet many scholars believe that Americans still experience a racial divide during Christian worship. While this seems largely voluntary, with the majority of American churches composing similar race, culture, and class groups, an investigation of new media in churches must ask whether race, culture, and class should affect social media... Read more