I included a lot of history in today's Current feature on vaccine exemptions. The piece draws on a talk I gave earlier this week to the constituents of the Council of Foreign Relations. I am told that the video will be available soon. Since we don't do footnotes at Current, I thought I would list the sources that informed my piece: Arthur Allen, Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine's Greatest Lifesaver (New York: W.W. Norton, 2008). James Colgrove, State of … [Read more...] about Sources on the history of religious-based vaccine resistance in America
Age of Fracture
The “Age of Fracture” and Evangelicalism
In his 2011 Bancroft Prize-winning book The Age of Fracture, Princeton intellectual historian Daniel Rodgers writes: Across multiple fronts of ideational battle, from the speeches of presidents to books of social and cultural theory, conceptions of human nature that in the post-World War II era had been think with context, social circumstances, institutions, and history gave way to conceptions of human nature that stressed choice, agency, performance, and desire. Strong … [Read more...] about The “Age of Fracture” and Evangelicalism
The Court Evangelicals Feel Betrayed By *Christianity Today*
Last night I re-read the court evangelical letter to Tim Dalrymple, the CEO of Christianity Today. Read the letter here. I offered some commentary here. I was struck by this passage (italics mine): Of course, it’s up to your publication to decide whether or not your magazine intends to be a voice of evangelicals like those represented by the signatories below, and it is up to us and those Evangelicals like us to decide if we should subscribe to, advertise in and read your … [Read more...] about The Court Evangelicals Feel Betrayed By *Christianity Today*
Who Speaks for Evangelicalism?
I was struck by this question again yesterday in class. We were reading Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address and I was asking students to compare Lincoln's moral vision in the address with the anti-Confederate writings of some 19th-century Christian leaders. One of those Christian leaders was Henry Ward Beecher, the clergyman who historian Debby Applegate described as "The Most Famous Man in America." Beecher's wanted to punish the post-war South for its sins. Lincoln, as … [Read more...] about Who Speaks for Evangelicalism?