In my sixth decade, Cold War spy novels captured me, and I believe I know why. As a child, I was about all things related to war and the military. I say all things, but really my interests were limited to the American . . . Continue reading →
At the end of March Brad Isbell, Wilson Van Hooser and I discussed whether Revivalism can be Reformed. As usual, great fun was had by all. Here’s the video: Here’s the audio-only episode in the Presbycast Libsyn feed. Subscribe to the Presbycast . . . Continue reading →
Most Christians who know about J. Gresham Machen, associate him with his most popular book, Christianity and Liberalism (1923). Even in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and extending outward to communions in NAPARC, Reformed Christians know Machen mostly through the book he wrote at the . . . Continue reading →
Recognizing the remarkable accomplishments of historical figures who were also flawed seems to be a bridge too far for a certain sector of Americans. Perhaps holding on to slavery as the most important aspect of American history appeals to those inclined to . . . Continue reading →
Over four-hundred years after the Pilgrims celebrated God’s preservation of their lives through a difficult winter and his gracious gift of an abundant harvest in the spring of 1621, the United States will once again have its annual holiday of Thanksgiving on . . . Continue reading →
It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history—and yet no blood was spilled, no bombs were thrown, and no monarch was beheaded. What happened was this: In the middle of the 18th century, huge numbers of ordinary people began . . . Continue reading →
Rev. Chris Gordon and Dr. W. Robert Godfrey delve into the fascinating and complex life of Aimee Semple McPherson, a pivotal figure in the development of both evangelicalism and Pentecostalism. They explore her groundbreaking role as a female preacher, her innovative methods . . . Continue reading →
According to Tucker Carlson, Darryl Cooper is “the most important popular historian working in the United States today.” I had never heard of Cooper until this week and was none the wiser when I went to look for his books. There are . . . Continue reading →
I was raised in an era that is evidently receding. Not that very long ago, it was quite politically incorrect to mistreat Jewish holocaust descendants. Now, a Jewish student is practically persecuted on many elite campuses. Indeed, that general disavowal of anti-Semitism, . . . Continue reading →
From Scott Howard-Cooper’s introduction to Kingdom on Fire,1 a memoir about the turbulent 1960s through the intersected lives of UCLA legends, Coach John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Walton, we learn of some of the zany madness underneath some earlier student protests compared to . . . Continue reading →
. . . By the estimation of leading religious demographers, over thirty million Christians perished under atheist regimes in the twentieth century. Tell this to friends who might insouciantly associate “secularism” with deliverance from religious violence. Tell this, too, to American history . . . Continue reading →
If Abraham Lincoln still matters to Americans in the 21st century—and he does—a major reason is that there’s much at stake politically in how we remember him. This is as true of Lincoln’s religious beliefs as for any other part of his . . . Continue reading →
Pre-1700’s Presbyterianism in America is shrouded in mystique. Some would say it did not really exist since there was no formal Presbytery established until 1706. Too often it is made to appear that Presbyterianism suddenly dropped into the colonies out of nowhere, . . . Continue reading →
In certain sectors of the Christian world, such patriotic excess is in marked decline. For several years a gifted set of Roman Catholic thinkers, sometimes known as integralists—Edmund Waldstein and Adrian Vermeule among them—have taken a dim view of the American founding and its subsequent . . . Continue reading →
Understandably, for many American Christians, the fight or flight instinct has kicked in. They are made to pay taxes to support institutions—for example, public schools—that demonstrably work against their interests and seek to subvert the authority of parents in the family by . . . Continue reading →
The nature, origins, and status of revivals and revivalism is a contested issue among scholars and popular writers on these topics. It is a question even whether revivals and revivalism are properly distinguished and if so how? There are narratives about revivals . . . Continue reading →
A spontaneous marathon revival among students and faculty at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky, resulted in a week-long shut-down of classes and reached out to other colleges and communities from coast to coast this month. Students, faculty, townspeople, and visitors wept, and . . . Continue reading →
The 1619 Project, a product of the New York Times, now a television series on Hulu, is a deeply flawed re-telling of American history. It is not simply that one disagrees with the conclusions of the 1619 Project—historians often disagree about conclusions—what . . . Continue reading →
From the author of The Lost Soul of American Protestantism and From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin: Evangelicals and the Betrayal American Conservatism, comes Benjamin Franklin: Cultural Protestant. Part of Oxford’s “Spiritual Lives” series, the host of the Paleo Protestant Pudcast (podcast) . . . Continue reading →
I do not blame you if, when you think of the black church, you think of it as an emaciated and anemic institution. It would be an easy intellection to hold, especially when an entire book can be written about the state . . . Continue reading →