The Scandal of Patriarchy in My Evangelical Mind
Today we welcome Joey Cochran to the Anxious Bench. Joey recently earned his Ph.D. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He is an independent scholar and Social Media Coordinator for The Conference...
View ArticleAll Welcome? Same-Sex Couples & Faith-Based Adoption Agencies
Today’s Anxious Bench post is written by two of my colleagues at Calvin University, Elisha Marr, Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of Gender Studies, and Emily Helder, Associate Professor...
View ArticleA Sinking Ship or Weathering the Storm: #SBC21 in 21 Tweets
This week’s Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting has been widely viewed as a moment of reckoning. With a far-right takeover afoot, with Black pastors threatening to leave the SBC should Mike...
View ArticleEucatastrophe in American Evangelicalism
To be honest, I did not think the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting was going to go well. Along with many other evangelical observers, I feared that the representatives from SBC churches...
View ArticleIs There a Theological Reason for White Evangelical Racism?
White evangelicals are less likely than any other religious or demographic group in the United States today to believe that Blacks experience structural racial discrimination. But is this blind spot a...
View ArticleIs it Time for Fundamentalism Again? A Review of Owen Strachan’s Christianity...
It was the title that first caught my eye. Evangelical theologian Owen Strachan named his recent book, Christianity and Wokeness, after the classic 1923 fundamentalist critique of liberal...
View ArticleRecent Books on Women, Gender, and Sex in American Religious History, Part 2
This semester I am teaching one of my favorite courses: “Women, Gender, and Sex in American Religious History.” It’s a graduate course, so I joke that it’s basically my personal book club: I make a...
View ArticleThe Other Evangelicals: An Interview with Dr. Isaac Sharp
Isaac, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today. It’s so good to get to learn from you, especially at an exciting moment in your scholarly life. Your new book The Other Evangelicals: A Story...
View Article#Praying for Damar Hamlin
Like many of you, I watched in horror last Monday as Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin fell backwards following a collision in the first quarter of a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. I sat, stunned...
View ArticleWhy Abortion Divides American Protestants
This week, the most controversial Supreme Court decision of modern times, Roe v. Wade, reached its fiftieth anniversary. Even though the Supreme Court rescinded the decision last year, the divisions...
View ArticleWhy Tim Keller Stays out of the Culture Wars
A Review of Collin Hansen’s Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (Zondervan, 2023) In a world of political and cultural polarization, Tim Keller is an enigma who defies easy...
View ArticleOn the Students for Fair Admission v. President and Fellows of Harvard decision
On Thursday June 29, the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in college admissions in an anticipated decision. The ruling, Students for Fair Admission, Inc. vs. President and Fellows of...
View ArticleMedieval Christian Nationalism? Crusades and Christian Nations
For those of us who are American, today is the Fourth of July: a day for fireworks, family, and celebrating (or reckoning with) the history of the United States of America. I have to admit, as a...
View ArticleHistory, Cancel Culture, and the Desire for Innocence
In the 1980s when I was growing up as a pastor’s daughter in a conservative Christian context, I kept my ear to the ground for the whispers of the adults around me. As a budding scholar of history, I...
View Article“The World is an Insane Asylum”: Notes from a Texas Megachurch Visit
Hi! I am a cultural sociologist on a tour of Texas Megachurches. Check out my first post here. For today’s post, I cover my recent visit to Cornerstone Church in San Antonio....
View ArticleA Conversation with Dr. Andrew Whitehead
Last month I had the privilege of talking with Andrew Whitehead, Associate Professor of Sociology at IUPUI and Director of the Association of Religion Data Archives at the Center for the Study of...
View ArticleAmerican Secularization Hasn’t Followed the Script That Secularization Theory...
“Nones” now comprise 28 percent of the American adult population, according to survey data that the Pew Research Center released this month. Sixteen years ago, in 2007, only 16 percent of Americans in...
View ArticleWhat Happened with Rosaria Butterfield?
Several weeks ago, while browsing at my local public library, I came across Rosaria Butterfield’s new book, Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age. I hadn’t heard of it. But like so many other...
View ArticleWhy Is the Abortion Rate Increasing?
The Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022 was supposed to reduce the number of abortions in the United States. In the summer of 2022, jubilant pro-life advocates eagerly forecast an...
View ArticleSheep in Wolves’ Clothing: A Parable and a Provocation
“If you converse with these missionaries of Christian civilization, you will be surprised to…meet a politician where you expected to find a priest.” In the almost 200 years since Alexis de Tocqueville...
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