The expression “mainline church” is drawn from an old-money neighborhood in Philadelphia known as “the main line.” The mainline churches were what are sometimes called the “tall steeple” church along the mainline. Scholars of American Christianity sometimes speak of the “Seven Sisters . . . Continue reading →
Many Americans born after 1960 have trouble imagining that for much of the country’s history the Bible was a chief source of national identity. Older Hollywood directors sometimes get it right. Take “Liberty Heights” (1999), written and directed by Barry Levinson (born . . . Continue reading →
Locke and Shaftesbury opened an intellectual world firmly in the deist camp, even though deism itself was more an outlook and reading list than a card-carrying affiliation. Franklin later described his religious sensibility as the sort of minimalist belief he found in . . . Continue reading →
As much as the debates in Commonweal and the Times revealed that Roman Catholics were not of the same mind about the church’s relationship to modern society, those disputes were mild compared to a revival of antiliberalism from Roman Catholic intellectuals. In . . . Continue reading →
Integralism and Protestant theocracy are twin movements of which our readers should be aware. The first is a Romanist movement. The second is a movement among a small but visible band Protestants who seek a similar outcome. Roman Integralism Romanist “integralists” like . . . Continue reading →
How pervasive is Christian nationalism in the United States? Before answering, a more pressing question is: What is it? Here the people paid to define our terms are all over the place. Christian nationalism can involve a national church like the Church . . . Continue reading →
On June 9, 1886, a funeral was held in a church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The deceased, John Williamson Nevin (1803–86), was a pastor, professor, and theologian in the German Reformed Church. Friends and family were in attendance as well as several theologians and professors of differing fame and reputation. None of this was unusual for a theologian’s funeral in nineteenth-century America. There was, however, at least one irregularity: A. A. Hodge (1823–16) gave one of the eulogies.1 Hodge’s late father, Charles Hodge (1797–1878), and Nevin were involved in one of the most prominent sacramental controversies in nineteenth-century America, yet the younger Hodge eulogized the very man who contested with his father decades before. Even now, the controversy and the theologies that gave rise to it live on long after the death of the major figures. Continue reading →
This is the eighth session of Bob Godfrey’s Adult Sunday School series at the Escondido URC. In this session he discusses the dramatic changes in American culture in the last few years wherein America has abandoned Christendom, a way of looking at . . . Continue reading →
This is the seventh session of Bob Godfrey’s Adult Sunday School series at the Escondido URC. In this session he explores the challenges faced by Christendom due to the Enlightenment and how it took shape in America. He argues that Christianity as . . . Continue reading →
In 1562, Jean Ribault, a naval officer under Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and a Huguenot, began a voyage to the land that is now southeastern United States. He established a colony on Parris Island, South Carolina called Charlesfort. The settlement failed in . . . Continue reading →
According to a significant number of scholars of American history, one of the most serious weaknesses in the self-described 1619 Project, which argues that racism and slavery was a central motivation for the origin of the American Republic, is that it is factually inaccurate. Continue reading
Removal of the David D’Angers statue of Thomas Jefferson from City Hall would be a direct attack on a symbol of the democratic values New Yorkers hold dear. The statue specifically honors Jefferson for his greatest contribution to America, indeed, to humankind: . . . Continue reading →
On a hot, drowsy August Saturday, a copy of the New York Times Magazine devoted entirely to something called The 1619 Project landed on my doorstep, and immediately grabbed my attention. It took me little time to comprehend the project’s purpose, or . . . Continue reading →
The 400th anniversary of the first landing of enslaved Africans at Jamestown could have been a great and unifying moment for America. It could have reinforced the assertion of African American scholar W.E.B. DuBois that “before the Pilgrims landed we were here,” . . . Continue reading →
The publisher’s blurb says: Over the last thirty years, conservative evangelicals have been moving to the Northwest of the United States, where they hope to resist the impact of secular modernity and to survive the breakdown of society that they anticipate. These . . . Continue reading →
Events described by the author of the Savage manuscript, in other words, provide an opportunity to reimagine Edwards as an active promoter of the most radical dimensions of the evangelical new birth experience—a figure who, during the early months of the Awakening, . . . Continue reading →
It is difficult to imagine. Jonathan Edwards countenancing the “Confus’d, but very Affecting Noise” that erupted in Suffield, Massachusetts, on July 6, 1741. Yet there he stood, his loud voice rising in prayer above the din that emanated from an assembly of . . . Continue reading →
Most Americans were illiterate before the creation of our public education system in the 1830s. That seems to be a popular assumption, but is it true? If you’re looking for statistics, they’re notoriously hard to get when it comes to literacy rates . . . Continue reading →
What can confessional Presbyterian and Reformed folk learn from the history of Roman Catholicism in America? Quite a lot as it turns out. We are continuing our brief hiatus from the series, As It Was In The Days of Noah to talk with . . . Continue reading →
It is a deep animus that would seek to tie John Calvin (1509–1564) to the QAnon-fueled wackos who stormed the American capitol earlier this month but that is what Richard Hughes tries to do in a recent editorial in the Los Angeles . . . Continue reading →