Christianity

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• SOURCE: Crain's Chicago Business
  2/21/2021
  

  America's Churches are Now Polarized, Too

  The Trump era has concentrated longstanding differences about the role of faith in American life and the obligations of the faithful to act in the world. During the McCarthy era, the Republican establishment pushed back against attacks on clergy by the far right. Will something similar happen today? 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/16/2021
  

  Henry Louis Gates Jr. on African-American Religion

  Jon Meacham reviews Henry Louis Gates's book on the Black church in America; Gates seeks to recover the traditions of social and political activism in churches against skeptics who identify religion with conservatism and quietude. 

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  1/21/2021
  

  Bad Religion in the Ivory Tower

  by Jacques Berlinerblau

  Have scholars of religion and politics missed the rise of militant Christian nationalism because they follow an unspoken rule to "always posit religion at its best, secularism at its worst"? 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  1/15/2021
  

  White Christian Nationalists Want More Than Just Political Power

  by Lauren R. Kerby

  "White Christian nationalism also unites nostalgia for a lost age of Christian power with a profound sense of victimization. No one should underestimate how dangerous this combination is, particularly among those who decide that their faith requires them to retake their nation."

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• SOURCE: Conference on Faith & History
  1/13/2020
  

  Resolution of the Conference on Faith and History: Executive Board Response to the Assault on the U.S. Capitol

  The global organization of scholars of the relationship between Christian faith and history has issued a statement condemning the Capitol riots as "a gross violation of the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  1/14/2021
  

  The Capitol Riot Revealed the Darkest Nightmares of White Evangelical America

  by Matthew Avery Sutton

  Many observers have speculated that American evangelicals have had a transactional relationship with Donald Trump. But his messages of "American carnage" and warnings of dire consequences if he is defeated mesh perfectly with their end-times outlook and have helped tie evangelicals to the far right coalition. 

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• SOURCE: Christianity Today
  12/4/2020
  

  Thomas Jefferson Tried to ‘Fix’ the Bible. He Only Succeeded in Making It Sad (Review)

  A reviewer of Peter Manseau's new book "The Jefferson Bible" finds it a valuable account of Jefferson's position in the conflict between religious orthodoxy and freedom of conscience and belief, but was less impressed with TJ's editing job, which produced a joyless text.

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• SOURCE: Southern Spaces
  11/20/2020
  

  When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras

  by Claudrena N. Harold

  Professor Harold's new book looks at gospel music in the late 20th century and reappraises it as a period of artistic innovation, not of misguided pursuit of commercial or crossover success. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  11/18/2020
  

  Trump has Changed the Way Evangelical Christians Think about the Apocalypse

  by Thomas Lecaque

  Evangelicals have largely avoided interpreting the COVID-19 pandemic as a sign of the end times because doing so would also demand that they recognize their champion Donald Trump as a morally degenerate leader. The apocalyptic rhetoric that flowed freely under Obama has been silent this year. 

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• SOURCE: The Revealer
  11/12/2020
  

  On Evangelical Masculinities (Review)

  Journalist Daniel José Camacho reviews Kristin Kobes Du Mez's book "Jesus and John Wayne" and considers the way that masculinities are expressed in non-white evangelical communities. 

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• SOURCE: ABC News
  11/8/2020
  

  Dutch Protestant Church Admits Failing Jews in World War II

  René de Reuver, speaking on behalf of the General Synod of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, said the church’s role began long before Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany.

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• SOURCE: NPR
  10/28/2020
  

  Trump Has Weaponized Masculinity As President. Here's Why It Matters

  Historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez says Donald Trump's aggressively masculine political posture is dysfunctional because it requires enemies. 

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• SOURCE: TIME
  10/6/2020
  

  The Overlooked Queer History of Medieval Christianity

  by Roland Betancourt

  An attentive reading of the record shows that same-sex intimacy, gender fluidity, and diverse sexual identities were prevalent among early Christians, contrary to the claims made by some fundamentalists today that these represent deviations from historical norms. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  9/24/2020
  

  The Evangelical Vote (audio)

  NPR's "Throughline" examines the growth of evangelical christianity as a political movement and its influence over the nomination of a Supreme Court justice and the election. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  9/22/2020
  

  How the Religious Right Has Transformed the Supreme Court

  Law professors Lee Epstein and Eric Posner argue that the conservative bloc on the court has shifted from the libertarianism favored by big business to a more aggressive religious activism. 

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• SOURCE: The New Republic
  9/18/2020
  

  What Trump Taught America About the Bible

  by Peter Manseau

  The Bible is a powerful talisman for the majority of Americans, but Trump’s successful use of it these past five years suggests that, to many, it is a book whose content matters less than the one holding it; an expression of tribal identity as much as creed.

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• SOURCE: War on the Rocks
  9/4/2020
  

  Topics You’re Not Supposed To Discuss At Dinner: The Role Of Evangelical Religion In U.S. Foreign Policy (Podcast)

  Lauren Turek, Ashlyn Hand and William Inboden discuss how, as Turek documents, in the late 20th century, the specific notion of human rights intersected with evangelical missionaries and their perceptions of the risks associated with communism and other important foreign policy questions, and were able to organize and influence U.S. foreign policy in a new and important way.

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  9/8/2020
  

  Why Thomas Jefferson Created His Own Bible

  by Peter Manseau

  The "Jefferson Bible," representing Thomas Jefferson's efforts to excise the supernatural and miraculous from the New Testament, is an important document of American religious culture. The story of its preservation by Cyrus Adler and John Fletcher Lacey is a remarkable tale as well that reflects changes in the political nature of American religion.

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• SOURCE: Saved by History
  8/27/2020
  

  Stars and Stripes and Blasphemy

  by L.D. Burnett

  What we heard from Mike Pence was a white evangelical Christian swapping out the Savior for the United States flag.  

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• SOURCE: The Way of Improvement Leads Home
  8/26/2020
  

  The Last Fundamentalist Empire Died Yesterday in Lynchburg, Virginia

  by John Fea

  Although he oversaw tremendous growth at Liberty University and tried to lead in the culture wars, Jerry Falwell Jr. was unable to maintain credibility as a faith leader necessary to hold his empire. It's unclear whether any evangelical organization can succeed as a business and a theological enterprise.