Kimberly R. Kellison is Associate Professor of History & Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University. This interview is based on her new book, Forging a Christian Order: South Carolina Baptists, Race, and Slavery, 1696–1860...
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...
Al Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and editor of World magazine’s new “Opinions” section, recently challenged the politics of New York Times columnist David Brooks in a piece titled “Sir, you are not a conservative.” In response...
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,...
Over at Christianity Today, Dan Silliman reports on the excavation at First Baptist Church, an African-American church founded in 1776 by free and enslaved Blacks in Williamsburg, Virginia. Here is a taste: They dug up broken bits of lamp, the...
Eric Smith is Senior Pastor of Sharon Baptist Church in Savannah, Tennessee and Adjunct Professor of Historical Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. This interview is based on his new book, Oliver Hart and the Rise of...
Here is Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty: (RNS) — When President Donald Trump leaked, at a rally for evangelical supporters in Florida on Jan. 3, that his administration would issue guidance about prayer in...
Many of you are familiar with “Christians Against Christian Nationalism.” I signed the statement and wrote about it here and here. Over at The Anxious Bench, Chris Gehrz calls our attention to a podcast in which some of the endorsers...
Back in October 2017 I wrote a post about the skeletons found on the site of the First Baptist Church burial ground. In the last couple of years this story has been a staple of my tour of colonial-era Philadelphia....
Over at Christianity Today, Kate Shellnut covers recent independent Baptist sex-abuse scandal as reported on Sunday by the Forth Worth Star-Telegram. I tried to offer some historical context on this movement here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home and I am happy to...
The independent fundamentalist Baptist movement emerged sometime in the 1940s as an attempt to continue the legacy of the fundamentalist movement of the 1920s. It upheld what it believed to be the true spirit of fundamentalism amid changes in the...
Yesterday I gave a lecture on Protestantism to the teacher participating in the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History Princeton Seminar. I tried to get them to see that when the Bible is translated into the vernacular and can be read...
I am not a scholar of religion in the American South. Nor am I an expert on the Southern Baptists or the so-called “conservative resurgence” in the 1980s. But ever since I started writing posts about this whole Paige Patterson...
The Red Bank Baptist Church in Lexington, South Carolina is removing a statue of Jesus because it is “too Catholic in nature.” Here is a taste of Mary Rezac’s article at Catholic News Agency: The white, hand-carved statue in question...
The hits keep coming for Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary president Paige Patterson. If you are not up to speed about what is happening in Fort Worth, I encourage you to begin with these posts. The latest hit comes from Patheos...
Christianity is booming in the so-called Global South. Over at The Christian Century, Baylor University historian Philip Jenkins wonders why Baptists do not seem part of this great revival. Here is a taste: The relative global numbers are counterintuitive for...
Kenneth Starr was fired as president of Baylor University in May 2016 for his poor handling of a rape and sexual assault scandal on campus. He has finally been replaced. The new president of Linda A. Livingstone. Here is a...
Over at the Black Quotidian blog, proprietor and Arizona State history professor Matthew Delmont calls our attention to a headline in the August 30, 1930 edition of the Baltimore Afro-American: While much of the bitterness, exposes, and even bloodshed expected to...
Joshua Guthman is Julian-Van Dusen Chair in American History at Berea College. This interview is based on his new book Strangers Below: Primitive Baptists and American Culture (The University of North Carolina Press, 2015). JF: What led you to write...
Warren Harding was the first Baptist to serve as President of the United States. Over at First Things, Timothy George, the Dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, examines the man who many consider to be one of our...
