Departments

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evangelicalism

  • SOURCE: The New Yorker
    3/27/2023

    How "Christian" is Christian Nationalism?

    Historian Kathryn Gin Lum, among other scholars, helps to shed light on the paradox that those who believe America is a "Christian nation" hold that view with greater militancy even as religious observance declines. 

  • SOURCE: Substack
    2/15/2023

    The Threat of Christian Nationalism

    by Kristin Du Mez

    "Because Christian nationalists believe that God is on their side and that the fate of Christian America is at stake, among staunch adherents there is no space for compromise."

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    1/18/2023

    The Common Evangelical Roots of Insurrection in America and Brazil

    by Raimundo Barreto and João B. Chaves

    A century of international evangelical network-building and theological development have brought militant Christian nationalism to the forefront of right-wing politics in both nations. 

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    1/10/2023

    My Course Examines Why God and Guns Go Together in America

    by Joseph P. Slaughter

    Although there are many "peace church" traditions in American Christianity, there are many other historical strains that view violence as an appropriate and necessary means of securing the divinely sanctioned destiny of the nation. 

  • SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
    12/12/2022

    Why Can't the US Press Name the Bad Faith in Evangelical Politics?

    by John Stoehr

    Head-scratching accounts of "conflicted" evangelicals voting again and again for manifestly ungodly candidates would vanish if the media consulted (or hired) ex-evangelicals, who would explain the movement seeks power, not piety. 

  • SOURCE: Current
    10/27/2022

    What Does It Mean to Be Baptized for Trump?

    by John Fea

    100 Trump supporters were baptized last week in Pennsylvania, at a rally featuring a who's who of MAGA world. A Christian historian wonders: what do we make of a spiritual commitment to Trumpism, and of the political appropriation of the conversion experience? 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    8/7/2022

    Church-State Separation is Alien to Many Americans' Faith

    by Caleb Gayle

    The "classical" Christian curriculum pushes a historical vision that America was conceived by God as a beacon of righteousness, and that Christian duty is to eliminate secularism and religious pluralism. 

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    5/16/2022

    Buffalo Shooting Reflects Deeply Rooted American Ideas

    by Jesse Curtis

    Labeling the so-called "Great Replacement" a conspiracy theory obscures how closely it hews to commonplace American ideas about race, nation, and who is entitled to rule. 

  • SOURCE: Los Angeles Review of Books
    11/16/2021

    A Beautiful Mess: On “The Eyes of Tammy Faye”

    by Emily Suzanne Johnson

    "The people who made this film seem to care about its subject, but the film does not know itself well enough to be itself and love itself. Tammy Faye’s heart and soul just aren’t in it."

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    5/27/2021

    What We Believe About History

    by Kristin Kobes Du Mez

    "Understanding that beliefs have a history does not preclude a commitment to truths outside of history. But it does prompt believers to consider how historical forces and cultural allegiances may have shaped their own deeply held convictions."

  • SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
    5/21/2021

    Breaking Evangelical Resistance to Coronavirus Vaccines will be Hard

    by Matthew Avery Sutton

    COVID vaccination documents are the latest phenomenon that Evangelicals have integrated into an apocalyptic reading of scripture. This means up to a quarter of the US population may need extensive convincing to take the vaccine. 

  • SOURCE: The New Republic
    3/16/2021

    The Post-Trump Crack-Up of the Evangelical Community

    Anthea Butler and Kristin Kobes Du Mez offer insight into how racial double standards within evangelical religion and the willingness of "insider" historians to craft a selective picture of evangelical political action has made it difficult to understand how many of today's evangelical leaders have made peace with (or even embraced) white supremacy.

  • 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. 

  • SOURCE: Patheos
    7/23/2020

    Os Guinness, Eric Metaxas, and Their Dangerous Myths of American History

    by Abram Van Engen

    "Only when we begin to see the multiplicity and complexity of history can we begin to understand how God moves in it and through it, and how we, in the present, can and should respond—righting wrongs and attempting to shine a light in dark places," writes Abram Van Engen.