Articles & Essays (Select)

So, it turns out close to half of all white evangelicals think Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed even if Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault are true. (An NPR/PBS NewHour/Marist poll conducted last week, 48% of white evangelical Christians believed he should be…

Is evangelicalism a political movement? There’s been a lot of talk about how to define evangelicalism of late, much of it centering around this question. I’ve been guilty of contributing more than my share to this seemingly endless (and to me,…

Perhaps you’ve heard. One month ago, evangelical women “hit pause” on the culture wars. It might surprise you to hear that this olive branch was extended in response to President Trump’s proposed Supreme Court pick. While many evangelicals were celebrating…

by Hannah Butler and Kristin Du Mez Scan the headlines, and it seems that everywhere you look, evangelicals are in the news. From Paige Patterson to the “court evangelicals” to Trump’s most dependable voting bloc, evangelicals have been the topic…

On April 26, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, in Montgomery, Alabama, opened its doors. The memorial is visually stunning. Around 800 rusted iron columns hang from above, each representing a county where a lynching took place. In a recent…

Is Focus on the Family a church? It depends who you ask. And it depends when you ask, apparently. Back in 2016, Focus on the Family reportedly asked the IRS to classify the organization as a church, in order to dodge the…

Fifty years. Fifty years since the shot rang out. Since Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. Over the years there has been a lot of reflection on the legacy of King, our…

Do you approve of the way Trump is handling his job as President? If you’re an evangelical, chances are you do. In a recent poll, 78% of white evangelicals approve of Trump’s job performance. This number, of course, comes remarkably close…

A few weeks back, evangelical theologian Richard Mouw explained over at Religion News Service why he declined to sign “prophetic” declarations. (You know, the official statements proliferating about this or that “justice-related matter.”) Since that time, the essay has been reprinted at First…

Access Hollywood. Roy Moore. Stormy Daniels. The cast of characters may shift from one scandal to the next, but evangelical Christians have remained remarkably consistent in their response to the sexual scandal du jour. Although evangelicals have not generally earned…

I’ve got to be honest. There was a time, not long ago, when I had become weary of conversations about “Christian scholarship.” These conversations, it seemed to me, had become stale, and sometimes took the place of actually doing scholarship,…

Sola gratia. By grace alone. With the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Protestants around the world have been revisiting this revolutionary concept. And rightly so. But with the festivities behind us, let’s set grace aside for a moment, and focus on…

“Me too.” I first saw these words on a friend’s Facebook post, a friend who only recently went through a grueling process to hold her workplace sexual harasser accountable. Prompted by the campaign inspired by activist Tarana Burke, she posted it along…

This blog post is a condensed excerpt from A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism (OUP 2015), pp. 75-78. It was the morning of October 16, 1893. The day dawned bright and frosty, and excitement was…

As a historian of American Christianity, I have followed with great interest the conversation Tish Harrison Warren began earlier this spring at Christianity Today’s #AmplifyWomen series. In an essay titled “Who’s In Charge of the Christian Blogosphere?,” Warren identified “a new crisis…

Imagine for a moment a team of anthropologists walking through your door, taking a look around, and settling in for a close observation of your possessions, how you interact with them, and what this means about American life. That’s pretty…

The fact remains that most American Christians remain startlingly ignorant of critical aspects of their church’s history. Learning this history can help us more faithfully know ourselves, love others, and follow Christ.

In the end, history doesn’t offer clear answers when it comes to addressing issues of gender, family, and labor. But a knowledge of history and its complexities can help us ask better questions.

So, you’ve probably heard by now: The Democrats have a religion problem. Historian Daniel K. Williams certainly isn’t the first to make this case, but in light of Jon Ossoff’s defeat in Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District last week, Williams thought…

1. “Christian feminism” is an oxymoron…and “secular feminism” is a tautology. Yes, there are certainly “secular feminists,” and there are some who are downright hostile to Christianity. But to consider Christianity and feminism as mutually exclusive obscures a long and…