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Cornbread and Caviar / Bob Jones Jr.

In Books on 23 June 2011 at 7:52 pm

I first read Cornbread and Caviar when I was in high school. Bob Jones Jr.’s love for fighting fire with fire and his willingness to say embarassing things about the yet living made it entertaining fare. Stories about Ma Sunday filching fried chicken? Check. Broadsides against Billy Graham? Check. As a teenager, a line like this was just fun: “What a tragedy to see him [Billy Graham] building the church of Antichrist, masking the wickedness of popery, and providing a sheep’s cloak of Christian recognition for the wolves of apostasy.” After receiving a new copy of the book from my uncle last week, I decided to reread it and see what caught my attention now that I’m a graduate student with an interest in twentieth century fundamentalism.

The first thing that stood out was Jones’s apologia for the racial order of the Old South. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity / Philip Jenkins

In Books on 7 June 2011 at 12:11 pm

Philip Jenkins is an oddball for the academy at a time when historians are expected to focus their research on a very specific topic, time, and place. As a student at Cambridge, Jenkins earned a PhD in history while doing research for the renowned criminologist Sir Leon Radzinowicz. He even found the time to win the BBC quiz show Mastermind by mastering questions in three unique fields: “Christianity AD 30-150,” “Vikings in Scotland and Ireland, 800-1150,” and the “History of Wales, 400-1100.” Since 1980, he has had appointments in criminal justice, American studies, religious studies, and history at Pennsylvania State University.

Before The Next Christendom was published in 2002, Read the rest of this entry »

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Evangelicals and Gay Marriage

In Essays on 30 May 2011 at 10:29 pm

Over the last few election cycles evangelicals have had to think seriously about their opposition to gay marriage. As homosexuality and gay marriage have become more culturally acceptable, evangelicals have been forced to contemplate their opposition to gay marriage in a way that was not necessary when homosexuality remained outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse. Several states–most recently Minnesota on May 21–have considered legislation which would codify heterosexual marriage and prohibit homosexual marriage or civil unions. A large majority of observant evangelicals believe that homosexuality is a sin and that gay marriage should not be legal (83% and 85%). Interestingly, evangelicals are less opposed to civil unions (67%). That statistically significant difference needs explanation.

Read the rest of this entry »

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So Much for the Protestant Ethic

In Links on 24 May 2011 at 3:34 pm

The New York Times recently published a graphic charting American denominations and religions by college graduation percentage and average income. The most evocative line from the accompanying article: “Overall, Protestants, who together are the country’s largest religious group, are poorer than average and poorer than Catholics.”

Read the rest of this entry »

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NPR Interview with Philip Jenkins on the King James Bible

In Links on 13 January 2011 at 7:47 pm

NPR host Michelle Martin recently interviewed Penn State professor Philip Jenkins about the impact of the King James Bible on the English language. Here’s a portion of the 11 minute interview:

MARTIN: Were there fights about translations? Because doctrinal differences do have implications down the line, as you were saying, even though, you know, humorously, thou shalt commit adultery. I mean, there really are different consequences to different interpretations. Were there some significant fights?

Prof. JENKINS: Absolutely. For example, there is a word that shows up in the New Testament, and one of the translations is bishop. So if you translated that word as a bishop, then you were saying that this very kind of hierarchical, structural view of the church was right there in the Bible and nobody could argue with it.

Read the rest of this entry »

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KJV Conference Call for Papers

In Calls for Papers on 19 November 2010 at 9:50 am

The Institute for Studies of Religion’s conference The King James Bible and the World It Made, 1611-2011  has extended the deadline for its call for papers to December 31st. If you have ever done any work on the KJV, here is a great opportunity to bounce your ideas off of a rather illustrious group of scholars. The proposed topics include,

*The KJV and the making of the English language and rhetoric

*The KJV and the language of race and gender

*The KJV and the 17th century: the world of Shakespeare, Milton and Bunyan

*The KJV and the public, oral use of the Bible

*The KJV and the Baptist tradition

*The Irish Bible: the KJV in Irish literature and politics

*The KJV and the modern religion and literature of the English-speaking world

(American, European, African, Indian, Australian, etc.)

*The KJV and revivalism

*The KJV and the African-American Churches: Slavery and Jubilee

*The KJV as the Bible of the American South

*The KJV and the language of war and peace

*The KJV as the text of social and urban reform

*The KJV in America, 1607-1776: the roots of revolution

*From one Renaissance to another: The KJV in 19

*The American Civil War and the KJV

*The KJV and the Book of Mormon

*The KJV in modern American politics

*The KJV as scholarship: In the light of later textual scholarship, how does the KJV hold up?

*The KJV Strikes Back: The struggle to defend the KJV against rival translations

*The KJV and world mission

*The KJV and modern global Christianity

*The KJV and the Jewish tradition of Bible translation

*How KJV shaped the Anglophone hymn-making tradition

*Bringing the KJV to the masses: popularizations in cartoon, verse, pamphlet and skit

*The KJV and the history of the book

*The KJV and fundamentalism

*The KJV on the fringes: How later new religions and aspiring prophets shaped their visions according to the models of the KJV

*Bible memorization and evangelical faith

*The KJV, the Bible, and new media: the crisis of the printed word

*The KJV and the end of biblical literacy

 

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Interview with Thomas Kidd

In Interviews on 20 October 2010 at 3:38 pm

Dr. Kidd, thanks for taking the time to introduce us to your latest book God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution. What is the basic premise of God of Liberty?

There is no historical topic more debated in America today than the role of faith in the American Founding. In God of Liberty, I show that religion was everywhere in the era of the Revolution, from days of prayer and fasting called by the Continental Congress, to the chaplains who served in Washington’s army, to the political principles of religious liberty and equality by God’s common creation of humankind. Unlike in today’s political arena, public principles of faith tended to unite Americans of very different personal beliefs.
 Read the rest of this entry »

Thomas Kidd on BookTV

In Uncategorized on 8 October 2010 at 3:35 pm

Thomas Kidd’s recent book talk about the recently released God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution will be aired on CSPAN2′s at 1:30pm tomorrow, October 9th.

From the program notes:

Thomas Kidd, associate history professor at Baylor University, recounts the role religion played in the American Revolution.  Mr. Kidd contends that it was the belief in the right to worship freely that brought the colonists together, from conservative Evangelists to liberal Deists, and remained a cohesive element following the War.  Thomas Kidd presents his book at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana.

HT: John Fea

Bruce Feiler on Pew Religion Survey: "Take Another Look"

In Uncategorized on 1 October 2010 at 11:30 am

In today’s Huffington Post, Bruce Feiler took a second look at the much-ballyhooed Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. His conclusions challenge the consensus that emerged on Tuesday: Americans don’t know much about religion.

Here’s a taste of Feiler’s findings:

Read the rest of this entry »

Roger Williams: The Grandfather of Twenty-First Century Pluralism?

In Uncategorized on 27 September 2010 at 3:30 pm

Over at Religion Dispatches, author Becky Garrison and Bill J. Leonard, founding dean of Wake Forest Divinity School, have a great piece about Roger Williams, the infamous 17th century Baptist preacher who established the colony of Rhode Island.

They contend that Williams’ radical idea of religious disestablishment (implemented for the first time in colonial Rhode Island) anticipated the U.S.’s contemporary religious pluralism.

(Their conversation provides a nice corollary to Paul’s excellent recent essay on secularization theory. Check out his post first.)

Here’s a taste:

Read the rest of this entry »

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