Author and activist Shane Claiborne calls on Christians to “practice resurrection” and get in the way of death. Here’s how Christian historians do just that. … More To Be a Historian Is To Practice Resurrection
The surprising power of the timeline as a tool for history professors. … More The Timeline as a Historical Tool
God, according to the Bible, “has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecc 3:11). I try to keep this wisdom in mind, as a scholar who is too prone to assume that his discipline has a monopoly on human … More In Which a Historian Learns to Embrace Nostalgia…
The real evangelical “crisis of authority” is that evangelical women have little authority. The other “crisis” is neither new nor necessarily a crisis. … More The Evangelical “Crisis of Authority” (It’s not just for women bloggers)
In one of my favorite episodes of one of my favorite TV series, the fictional town of Springfield takes a second shot at Prohibition and Homer Simpson becomes a bootlegger. As “Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment” ends, with everything returned to normal, Homer stands on a pyramid of kegs, hoists a beer, and proposes a toast: I thought of … More To Evangelicalism! The Cause of — and Solution to — Most of Its Own Problems
I’ll be down in New Ulm, Minnesota this Thursday evening giving a free lecture as part of the city’s centennial series on World War I. A German-American enclave in the southern part of the state, New Ulm had a difficult experience of the war, with its municipal leadership suspected of sedition by the state. You can learn … More Previewing My Talk on World War I Memorials
Last night marked the conclusion of The Great War, the three-part episode of PBS’ venerable American Experience documentary series focused on World War I. I live-tweeted each night of the miniseries, highlighting interesting facts and quotations from the episodes, but also trying to enrich it by sharing photos from our WWI travel course, suggesting further readings, and linking to newspapers, memoirs, … More How I Live-Tweeted The Great War on PBS
It’s not quite the “forgotten war” that the Korean War is, but World War I is certainly overshadowed in American memory by WWII, the Civil War, Vietnam, and the Revolutionary War. Nevertheless, the United States’ relatively short involvement in “the Great War” intersected with some of the most significant social, cultural, political, and economic shifts in American history. And now … More Go See the WW1 America Exhibit!
I’m eager to crack open Turning Points in the History of American Evangelicalism, edited by Heath Carter and Laura Rominger Porter and featuring a who’s who of American religious historians. Dedicated to Mark Noll, the book “seeks to both honor and build upon his contributions” via Noll’s own concept of “turning points.” I summarized it last year in a … More Was 2016 a Turning Point in the History of Evangelicalism?
The charms of Twitter wear thin quickly, but here’s one good use for that medium: asking your friendly neighborhood historian about one of their favorite topics. @cgehrz did the British use the term "Western Front" for the Western Front during #WW1 or did that develop later? — Joshua House (@wanderingyankee) March 2, 2017 Great question, … More When Did the Western Front Become “The Western Front”?
The Pietist Schoolman 