Spreading the Faith: Lessons from US History

February 10, 2017 By Leave a Comment

We hear a lot today about the effects of immigrants on American religion, and the rise of a majority-minority country. I am always surprised that in such discussions, writers rarely pay attention to an era of US history that is today more relevant than ever, namely the mass influx of immigrants in the previous great immigration, between 1880 and 1924. Of course, the analogies are not perfect, but they are richly informative, and they apply to all contemporary faiths and denominations, not just … [Read More...]

Heroes of the Faith: True, but not Accurate

February 9, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Today at the Anxious Bench we welcome Bruce Berglund, professor of history at Calvin College. He is co-editor of the collection of essays, Christianity and Modernity in Eastern Europe. His book Castle and Cathedral in Modern Prague: Longing for the Sacred in a Skeptical Age will be published this March by Central European University Press. As a historian, I usually don’t mind when pastors talk about history from the pulpit.Over the years, I’ve heard plenty of historical vign … [Read More...]

Dance and the Church: A History More Complicated than Footloose…

February 8, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Today we are pleased to welcome Lynneth Miller to the Anxious Bench. Lynneth is a PhD candidate in the Baylor History department specializing in British and Women's History. She holds an MLitt from St. Andrews and is writing a dissertation on Dance and the Church in England. It’s the climatic s … [Read More...]

Unexpected Sites of Christian Pacifism: Baptists during WWII and Vietnam

February 7, 2017 By Leave a Comment

During World War II, nearly 12,000 Americans registered as conscientious objectors and joined the Civilian Public Service (CPS). Unwilling to take human life, they instead served their country by doing everything from fighting forest fires to serving as test subjects for medical experiments. Most c … [Read More...]

Spreading the Faith: Daniel Syndrome

February 6, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Another in a series of posts about the many and various ways in which religions spread - often by people who originally had no intention whatever of becoming missionaries, or indeed of leaving their homes.Sometimes, people really do set out to spread their religion to new parts of the world, and … [Read More...]

Spreading the Faith: Mission, Migration and Movement

February 3, 2017 By Leave a Comment

As you must have noticed, immigration has been much in the news of late, and mainly in the context of religion. This actually gets to a lot of work I have been doing recently about how religions move and spread - in this case, mainly Christianity. I'll address various aspects of this in my next few … [Read More...]

Biographies Full of Females

February 2, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Who's significant?As Chris Gehrz discussed in a recent post, his students -- and most publishers -- think that a "biography is a book written about a significant individuals." Most of those individuals happen to be men in positions of political power. Presidents, kings, businessmen, and a few … [Read More...]

A Report from the Women’s March on Washington

February 1, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Today we're happy to welcome Mandy McMichael to The Anxious Bench. Mandy is Assistant Professor of Religion at Huntingdon College in Montgomery, AL. She holds a Ph.D. in Religion (American Religious History) from Duke University and is currently revising her dissertation on religion in the Miss A … [Read More...]

“…Not Hitler, But Still Kinda Like Hitler”

January 31, 2017 By Leave a Comment

You might have noticed a theme here in the days after Donald Trump's inauguration. First, I mentioned the political prisoners of Dachau in a post opposing Donald Trump's call for "total allegiance" to America. Then the anti-Nazi resistance of the White Rose in a follow-up last Tuesday. Two days la … [Read More...]

Birth and Eating as Resistance Movements

January 30, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Should Christians have any particular care about food and eating?Should Christians have any particular care about how women give birth?Those paired questions may not seem natural to treat together.  Barbara Katz Rothman, though not addressing a religious angle, joins concerns about food and … [Read More...]

Mixing and Merging Languages

January 27, 2017 By Leave a Comment

One thing that makes me feel very much at home in Texas is the way people talk Spanish. To explain, I did not grow up in a Spanish speaking area, but the way Latino people navigate between languages reminds me so precisely of the sort-of bilingual environment in which I spent my childhood. Thinking … [Read More...]

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Praying for the Best and Preparing for the Worst

January 26, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Today we welcome Jonathan Couser to the Anxious Bench. Jonathan received an M.Div. from Yale Divinity School and a PhD in Medieval History from the University of Notre Dame.  He teaches history at Plymouth State University and Granite State College in New Hampshire. The first week of Donald Tr … [Read More...]

Because Christian Women Should Fight Against Misogyny too….

January 25, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Imagine a world rife with misogyny and governed by patriarchy.  A world where women are identified primarily by their sexual status (virgins, wives, widows, prostitutes)....where rapists mostly go free....where women go to church more frequently than men, yet are mostly banned from leadership … [Read More...]

On Faith, Resistance, and Self-Sacrifice

January 24, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Critiquing Donald Trump's inaugural address for Religion Dispatches, Spencer Dew pointed out that the new president entirely omitted the features of American civil religion that Robert Bellah once described as being essential to understanding national identity in a democracy. Consequently, Trump's … [Read More...]

The Graduate Course, and Other Mythical Beasts

January 23, 2017 By Leave a Comment

I’m just preparing a graduate course that I am scheduled to teach next year. Through the years, I have taught a great many graduate courses of various kinds, but I have never explicitly addressed a basic question: what actually is a graduate course, what should it do, and how does it differ from u … [Read More...]

I Do Not Owe “Total Allegiance” to America

January 21, 2017 By Leave a Comment

MUNICH - When I left the United States earlier this month to lead a travel course in Europe, my president was Barack Obama. When I come back on Monday, I'll be returning to a country governed by Donald Trump. I'm grateful that our nation again witnessed a peaceful transfer of power, but Trump’s i … [Read More...]

Shadows of the Future

January 20, 2017 By Leave a Comment

"Answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?" (Ebenezer Scrooge, to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come) I have been discussing some of the Megatrends that had transformed the US since the mid-1970s. (By the way, the … [Read More...]

The Desecration of Indian Corpses

January 19, 2017 By Leave a Comment

In February 1850, Mormon settlers began a brief but bloody campaign against several bands of Ute Indians in Utah Valley. On February 13, the Mormons captured a group of Indians, promising them their lives and safety. They lied. "[W]e shall deal with them in the most summary manner as soon as another … [Read More...]

Mandates from the Masses and the Call to Courageous Christian Scholarship

January 18, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Today's guest post comes to us from Scott Culpepper, Associate Professor of History at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. Culpepper teaches courses on the early modern Atlantic World and Religion in American Culture. He holds a Ph.D. from Baylor University and is the author of Francis Johnson and … [Read More...]

Seeking God in The Holocaust

January 17, 2017 By Leave a Comment

PARIS -- As we pass the halfway mark of our travel course on the history of World War I, I'm starting to think more about the spring course I'll be teaching on World War II. To help me with that preparation, I've been reading Peter Fritzsche's new book, An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler.A … [Read More...]