Jeroen Dewulf is Queen Beatrix Professor in the Department of German & Dutch Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. This interview is based on his new book, Afro-Atlantic Catholics: America’s First Black Christians (University of Notre Dame Press, 2022)....
american christianity
What does Russell Moore’s departure from the Southern Baptist Convention tells us about the state of American Christianity?
The Southern Baptists are meeting in Nashville later this month and it is going to be a doozy! Stone vs. Mohler Critical race theory. Women in the church. Sexual-abuse cover-ups. Russell Moore. This sounds more like a soap opera than...
The Author’s Corner with John Smith
John Howard Smith is Professor of History at Texas A&M University-Commerce. This interview is based on his new book, A Dream of the Judgment Day: American Millennialism and Apocalypticism, 1620-1890 (Oxford University Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write...
The Author’s Corner with Ben Wright
Ben Wright is Assistant Professor of History at The University of Texas at Dallas. This interview is based on his new book, Bonds of Salvation: How Christianity Inspired and Limited American Abolitionism (LSU Press, 2020). JF: What led you to...
The Author’s Corner with Richard Boles
Richard Boles is Assistant Professor of History at Oklahoma State University. This interview is based on his new book, Dividing the Faith: The Rise of Segregated Churches in the Early American North (NYU Press, 2020). JF: What led you to...
The Author’s Corner with Evan Haefeli
Evan Haefeli is Associate Professor of History at Texas A&M University. This interview is based on his new book, Against Popery: Britain, Empire, and Anti-Catholicism (University of Virginia Press, 2020). JF: What led you to write Against Popery? EH: I...
Marilynne Robinson and the history of American Christianity
Casey Cep of The New Yorker has written the best piece on Marilynne Robinson I have ever read. As some of you know, Robinson has a new book out in her “Gilead” series. It is titled Jack. In these excerpts,...
The Author’s Corner with Ansley Quiros
Ansley L. Quiros is an assistant professor of history at the University of North Alabama. This interview is based on her new book God with Us: Lived Theology and the Freedom Struggle in Americus, Georgia, 1942–1976 (The University of North Carolina Press,...
The Author’s Corner with Matthew Bowman
Matthew Bowman is associate professor of history at Henderson State University. This interview is based on his new book, Christian: The Politics of a Word in America (Harvard University Press, 2018). JF: What led you to write Christian: The Politics of a Word...
The Author’s Corner with Fred Witzig
Fred Witzig is Professor of History at Monmouth College. This interview is based on his new book, Sanctifying Slavery and Politics in South Carolina: The Life of Alexander Garden (University of South Carolina Press, 2018). JF: What led you to write Sanctifying...
The Author’s Corner with Amanda Izzo
Amanda Izzo is an assistant professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at Saint Louis University. This interview is based on her new book, Liberal Christianity and Women’s Global Activism: The YWCA of the USA and the Maryknoll Sisters (Rutgers...
The Author’s Corner with John Hayes
John Hayes is associate professor of History at Augusta University. This interview is based on his new book, Hard, Hard Religion: Interracial Faith in the Poor South (The University of North Carolina Press, 2017). JF: What led you to write Hard, Hard Religion?...
Will a Post-Religious World Be an Improvement?
Writing at The Week, Damon Linker is not so sure. Here is a taste of his reflection on some recent polling data suggesting Christianity is in decline in America: Liberals tend to assume that those who have left religious traditions and...
More on David Barton’s Use of That John Adams Quote
Yesterday we did a lengthy post showing how Christian Right activist David Barton manipulated a John Adams quote to make it sound like Adams supported the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation. Barton is up to his...
The Court Evangelicals in Today’s Washington Post
Here is a taste of my piece “Trump threatens to change the course of American Christianity.” If you want to understand white evangelicalism in the age of Trump, you need to know Robert Jeffress, the pastor of First Baptist Church...
Scholars Tackle White Supremacy and American Christian History
The Religion & Culture Forum is running a series of posts on the history of the relationship between white supremacy and Christianity in modern America. A taste: The June issue of the Forum features Kelly J. Baker’s essay, “The Artifacts of...
Conference Honoring Mark Noll Rescheduled for March 2018
March 22-23, 2018. Learn more here....
The Benedict Option and Christian "Persecution" in America
Are American Christians being persecuted for their faith? I am not sure persecution is the right word. No one is coming into the homes of Christians with weapons threatening to kill them if they do not publicly denounce their faith....
"Enduring Trends and New Directions": A Conference Honoring Mark Noll
In Spring 2017, Notre Dame will be hosting a conference to honor the work and career of historian Mark A. Noll. Learn more about it here. Speakers include David Bratt, George Marsden, David Bebbington, Molly Worthen, Thomas Kidd, Tal Howard,...
"Corporate Evangelicalism"
I recently finished reading Chris Lehmann’s The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity,and the Unmaking of the American Dream. I have been a fan of Lehmann’s writing for some time now. A former graduate student in history at the University of Rochester where he...