From The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society: One of the highpoints of the ABS engagement with its home in New York City occurred following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the towers of the World...
Last weekend Joy and I were driving home from Providence, R.I. on Route 287 and we stopped at the McDonalds in Boonton, New Jersey. Until recently, my parents lived in the Boonton/Montville area. I was raised there, although the McDonalds...
The American Bible Society began asking this question in the 1990s. Their answer was to move away from a distribution model that defined success in terms of “tonnage” and toward a “scripture engagement” model that taught people how to use...
The front page of the website of the Museum of the Bible states: “Learn about the Museum being built and the other initiatives spurring worldwide Bible engagement.” The Museum of the Bible also describes itself this way: Museum of the Bible invites all...
Here is a link to a podcast interview I did recently with Franklin Rausch of New Books Network. We talk about The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society. Franklin is the first person to ask me about the...
🙂 Some of you are familiar with Peter Wosh’s excellent history of the American Bible Society, Spreading the Word: The Bible Business in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell, 1994). I relied heavily on Wosh’s book in my The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible...
In The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society I wrote about the way the ABS used water as a metaphor to describe its work during the early 19th century: The ABS owed owed much of its distribution success...
Matt Bevin, the Governor of Kentucky, just signed a bill allowing the Bible to be taught in the state’s public schools. Here is the text of HB 128: AN ACT relating to Bible literacy courses in the public schools. Create...
Earlier today I wrote about my recent visit to Memphis as part of a Civil Rights bus tour I am currently taking. We visited sites from The Civil Rights Movement and the African American history of the city in the...
In October 2017, Joel Baden and Candida Moss will publish Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby (Princeton University Press). Here is the publisher’s description: Like many evangelical Christians, the Green family of Oklahoma City believes that America was founded...
The new Common-Place is here and it includes Sonia Hazard‘s review of The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society. Hazard wanted me to say more about the Bible as a piece of material culture. It’s a fair criticism. Here...
In Summer 2015 the American Bible Society moved from New York City to Philadelphia. It currently rents two floors in the Wells Fargo building at 5th and Market streets. And according to this article at Philly.com, it is ready to...
The other day someone asked me if my book on the American Bible Society covers the role that Bibles played in “protecting” Civil War soldiers. Yes, it does. Here is a taste of Chapter 7 of The Bible Cause: A...
A recent study by LifeWay Research found that Americans have a positive view of the Bible, but they are not reading it. Here is a taste of Bob Smietana’s synopsis of the report: NASHVILLE, Tenn.— Americans have a positive view...
Next week (Sept. 22) I am making my first visit to Harrogate, TN. I will be delivering the Kincaid Lecture at Lincoln Memorial University. My lecture is titled: “The Bible in the Age of Lincoln: The American Bible Society and...
Check out Darryl G. Hart’s review of The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society in today’s Wall Street Journal! Here is a taste: For the past 50 years or so, the Bible—the collection of sacred Jewish and Christian texts—has taken...
I case you haven’t heard, the Republican Party wants to bring the Bible back into public schools. The GOP platform encourages public high schools to teach elective courses about the Bible. The Washington Post‘s Emma Brown has a great piece on this...
I realize that the title to this post is a little deceptive. No, I will not be speaking about The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society in a New York City ale house. (Although I would be happy...
This pic made my day. Thanks Liz Loveland!...
I am very grateful for Peter Thuesen‘s positive review of my The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society in the most recent issue of Books & Culture. It is the most thorough review to date. As I wrote The Bible...
