Category: History

Cover of the Hamilton cast recording

At Long Last, My Post on Hamilton and History

September 21, 2016

It’s probably foolhardy to post on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway sensation Hamilton. Even if there’s anything new to say at this point, there’s no way to write about something so exhilarating and creative without coming off as dry and trite by comparison. Aaron Burr, the show’s narrator and somewhat sympathetic villain, would no doubt advise me to “Talk less, smile more.” But in … More At Long Last, My Post on Hamilton and History

Enstrom, "Grace"

Beyond Books: “Come, Lord Jesus, Be Our Guest”

September 20, 2016

Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest And let these gifts to us be blessed Amen Today I’m happy to continue my new Anxious Bench series — on Christian writings that don’t take the form of books — by reflecting on the table grace that I’ve known all my life and am now teaching my children. Here’s an … More Beyond Books: “Come, Lord Jesus, Be Our Guest”

Stained glass of Isaiah receiving a vision from God

Sneak Peeks of Our Pietism Book: The Common Priesthood for the Common Good

September 19, 2016

One of the distinctive features of how we’re writing about Pietism and the future of Christianity is that Mark and I have sought out feedback from potential readers long before the book is sent off to InterVarsity Press. (As with my previous Pietism project, I’d like to think of this book as letting people listen in on a small group … More Sneak Peeks of Our Pietism Book: The Common Priesthood for the Common Good

The Covenant Hymnal (1973)

Beyond Books: Hymns as Christian Writing

September 13, 2016

As longtime readers know, I love Christian hymnody, especially that of my own tradition, Scandinavian Pietism. So I was happy for the excuse to revisit those songs as I kicked off a new Anxious Bench series today: on looking beyond books to other types of Christian writing. It’s a kind of belated response to the top 25 Christian writings list that Christian … More Beyond Books: Hymns as Christian Writing

Hall of Graduate Studies, Yale University

What David Barton Doesn’t Understand about Graduate School and Christian Scholarship

September 12, 2016

Like Jared, I think it’s evident that David Barton struggles to understand what historians do and how we do it. That’s especially true whenever he gets to the intersection between faith and learning. Consider his recent mini-tirade against John Fea: He [Fea] said the founding fathers didn’t want ministers–the founding fathers were ministers in office [sic].  So they’re doing this … More What David Barton Doesn’t Understand about Graduate School and Christian Scholarship

Opened Bible with pen

“We read Scripture to do God’s Word”

September 8, 2016

For the first half of my fall sabbatical in Virginia, my primary goal is to finish the manuscript for the book I’m writing with Mark Pattie: Hope for Better Times: Pietism and the Future of Christianity, which should come out from InterVarsity Press next year. Mark is primarily responsible for writing the chapter on how Pietists read the … More “We read Scripture to do God’s Word”

Logo for the 2016 Rio Olympics

Religion in The Olympics… And The Olympics as Religion

August 2, 2016

With the 2016 Summer Olympics just days away, let’s test your knowledge of the religious history of the games: Who banned the ancient Olympics in AD 393, and for what religious reason? What 1935 initiative had the joint support of Reinhold Niebuhr, the first Catholic to be a major party nominee for president, and the … More Religion in The Olympics… And The Olympics as Religion

Micah 6:8 displayed in the Bethel Business department

Following Up: Micah 6:8 in American Rhetoric

July 28, 2016

Last week my Anxious Bench colleague John Turner drew our attention to America’s Public Bible, a new project by Lincoln Mullen. A leading digital historian who works (like John) at George Mason University, Lincoln describes APB in this way: America’s Public Bible uncovers the presence of biblical quotations in the nearly 11 million newspaper pages in the Library of Congress’s … More Following Up: Micah 6:8 in American Rhetoric

The Americans poster (season 3)

Soviets and Sassenachs: My Two Favorite Historical TV Series

July 26, 2016

Time to show my hand and reveal of my favorite examples of historical moviemaking. Well, TV series-making, but then that’s just another form of the motion picture. After spending two Anxious Bench posts developing a set of four criteria for evaluating that kind of storytelling, today I applied them to two cable TV shows: the feminist time-traveling drama Outlander (Starz!) … More Soviets and Sassenachs: My Two Favorite Historical TV Series