Patrick O’Banion is one of the several outstanding graduates of the MA (Historical Theology) program, Westminster Seminary California. At my request he checked in and provided this update:

Teaching: I was recently hired as an assistant professor at Lindenwood University in St Charle, MO. Currently, I’m teaching a survey of early modern Europe and several sections of World History from 1500. I’ll also be teaching a courses on Church and State in Early Modern Europe and Historical Methods in the not-too-distant future. I still use your patented schema for distinguishing between pre-modernity, modernity, and post-modernity.

Research: My dissertation research (at St Louis University) was on religious practice, devotion, and reform in Spain from 1500-1700, especially the role of sacramental confession. With that finished, I’ve moved on to several other projects.

Since my days at Westminster Seminary California, I’ve been interested in the Italian Reformed theologian Jerome Zanchi (1516-1590). I’m finishing up a sort of popular translation of his treatise On Spiritual Marriage (De connubio spirituali). In the short run, I’ll be teaching a Sunday school class on the topic in the spring [gulp]. In the long run, I’d like to try and publish it.

I’m putting together the pieces for a history of crusading ideology in Spain from the late Middle Ages into the seventeenth century. I have an article forthcoming in the Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte on the topic.

Finally, I’m in the early stages of a micro-history of the small town of Deza in north-eastern Castile. During the early modern period, Deza’s population of baptized Muslims became a frequent target of the Spanish Inquisition. I discovered a treasure trove of inquisitorial records from these trials in the archive at the city of Cuenca and just had to do something with them.

Outside of academia: I got married last summer, I serve as a ruling elder at South City Church PCA in St Louis, MO, and I’m learning to play the mandolin. Needless to say, life isn’t boring.

Thanks for the update Patrick. We’ll be expecting good things from your keyboard.