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American religious history

The Author’s Corner with Mark Noll

Rachel Petroziello   |  April 8, 2022

Mark Noll is retired Professor of History at Wheaton College and the University of Notre Dame. This interview is based on his new book, America’s Book: The Rise and Decline of a Bible Civilization, 1794-1911 (Oxford University Press, 2022). JF: What...

The Author’s Corner with Steven K. Green

Rachel Petroziello   |  March 15, 2022

Steven K. Green is Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Religion, Law and Democracy at Willamette University. This interview is based on his new book, Separating Church and State: A History (Cornell University Press,...

Kenneth Jackson reviews Jon Butler’s God in Gotham

John Fea   |  March 11, 2022

One of the late 20th-century’s foremost historians of New York City reviews one of the late 20th-century’s foremost religious historians. Here is a taste of Jackson’s review of Butler‘s God in Gotham: The Miracle of Religion in Modern Manhattan: When...

The Author’s Corner with David Sehat

Rachel Petroziello   |  March 11, 2022

David Sehat is Professor of History at Georgia State University. This interview is based on his new book, This Earthly Frame: The Making of American Secularism (Yale University Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write This Earthly Frame? DS:...

The Author’s Corner with Jeremy Schipper

Rachel Petroziello   |  March 3, 2022

Jeremy Schipper is Professor of Religion at Temple University. This interview is based on his new book, Denmark Vesey’s Bible: The Thwarted Revolt That Put Slavery and Scripture on Trial (Princeton University Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write...

The Author’s Corner with Adam Jortner

Rachel Petroziello   |  February 9, 2022

Adam Jortner is Goodwin-Philpott Eminent Professor of Religion in the Department of History at Auburn University. This interview is based on his new book, No Place for Saints: Mobs and Mormons in Jacksonian America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). JF:...

The Author’s Corner with Jeffrey Perry

Rachel Petroziello   |  February 7, 2022

Jeffrey Perry is Assistant Professor of History at Tusculum University. This interview is based on his new book, Law in American Meetinghouses: Church Discipline and Civil Authority in Kentucky, 1780-1845 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). JF: What led you to...

The Author’s Corner with G. Kurt Piehler

Rachel Petroziello   |  February 1, 2022

G. Kurt Piehler is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Institute on World War II and the Human Experience at Florida State University. This interview is based on his new book, A Religious History of the American GI...

Nudity in the Bible?

John Fea   |  January 19, 2022

There were a lot of pictures of naked people in 19th-century Bibles. Here is historian Joseph Slaughter at The Panorama: Every now and then, work in the archives produces moments that jar us out of our misplaced assumptions. The biggest...

Fosdick’s “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” turns 100

John Fea   |  January 14, 2022

Current Contributing Editor Daniel K. Williams reflects on this classic 1922 sermon. Here is a taste of his post at The Anxious Bench: Now that we have reached the centennial anniversary of this sermon, perhaps it’s time to ask the...

COVID-19 vaccines and and the history religious exemptions

John Fea   |  January 14, 2022

Last November I joined Michelle Mello of Stanford University Law School in a conversation on religious exemptions and vaccines. The Council on Foreign Relations sponsored the event. You can watch it here:...

Sources on the history of religious-based vaccine resistance in America

John Fea   |  December 3, 2021

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...

Historian Thomas Kidd leaves Baylor for Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

John Fea   |  November 15, 2021

I knew Tommy Kidd liked barbecue, but I was not expecting this. Here is the press release: Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Jason Allen has announced that historian Thomas S. Kidd will join Midwestern Seminary’s residential faculty as research professor...

The Author’s Corner with Leigh Eric Schmidt

Rachel Petroziello   |  October 25, 2021

Leigh Eric Schmidt is Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University. This interview is based on his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021). JF: What led...

Albert Raboteau, RIP

John Fea   |  September 29, 2021

Princeton University religion professor Albert Raboteau‘s book Slave Religion was the first book I ever read on the history of the religion and the African American experience. Here is Adelle Banks at Religion News Service: Albert J. Raboteau, an American...

The Author’s Corner with Eric Smith

Rachel Petroziello   |  September 27, 2021

Eric Smith is Senior Pastor of Sharon Baptist Church and Adjunct Professor of Historical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This interview is based on his new book, John Leland: A Jeffersonian Baptist in Early America (Oxford University Press,...

The Author’s Corner with Brian Ogren

Rachel Petroziello   |  September 20, 2021

Brian Ogren is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies at Rice University. This interview is based on his new book, Kabbalah and the Founding of America: The Early Influence of Jewish Thought in the New World (New York University Press, 2021)....

The real Tammy Faye

John Fea   |  September 18, 2021

A lot of people are talking and writing about The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a new film on televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. I hope to see this soon. I am particularly interested in Vincent D’Onofrio‘s portrayal of Jerry Falwell. Over...

Is evangelical Christianity a religious movement, or is it something else?

John Fea   |  July 17, 2021

I first read historian Paul E. Johnson’s 1978 book A Shopkeeper’s Millennium: Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837 in 1989 while I was studying church history at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Johnson argued that evangelical religion in Rochester,...

Yale’s Harry Stout is still going strong

John Fea   |  July 10, 2021

I am teaching Harry Stout’s The Divine Dramatist again this Fall. I find it to be the most undergraduate accessible biography of Whitefield available. My students really like it. Stout has been busy of late. He has two biographies in...

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