However much the United States has been a moral or religious nation guided by (individual) impulses of spirit and conscience, it has also seen repeated mergers, or confusions, of religious and material intentions. One would be hard-pressed to argue that […]
capitalism
Is Democratic Socialism anti-Christian?
Here is a taste of Stephen Mattson‘s piece at Sojourners: “Why Democratic Socialism Isn’t Anti-Christian“: Contemporary Christians are among those who have embraced the democratic socialist platform as a necessary check against an economy and political system they view as […]
Pope Francis’s scathing critique of American life
Yesterday at The New York Times, Pope Francis published an excerpt of his new book Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future. He offers a devastating critique of the selfishness that we Americans try to pass off as […]
Court evangelical James Dobson invokes the Civil War in a letter to followers on the November elections
Read the entire letter here. Let’s break it down: Dobson: As I write this newsletter, voters across this nation are only a few short months away from the next general election. What an ominous time this is for our 244-year-old […]
The Author’s Corner with Daniel B. Rood
Daniel B. Rood is Associate Professor of History at the University of Georgia. This interview is based on his book, The Reinvention of Atlantic Slavery: Technology, Labor, Race, and Capitalism in the Great Caribbean (Oxford University Press, 2020). JF: What led you […]
White Supremacy, Capitalism, and a New Book on the History of St. Louis
Is capitalism racist? If you answer yes, you are one of the cool kids in the historical profession right now. Scholars working on the connections between capitalism and slavery have produced some interesting, helpful, provocative, and controversial work. Much of […]
Three Sundays in April (Part 4)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOxuBs5sR_s&w=560&h=315] If you had thirty minutes to say something to the most powerful man in the world, what would you say? This is how I started our short series titled “Three Sundays in April.” On April 19, 2020, the […]
Churches Will Not Be Open on Easter. But What If They Were?
Donald Trump is hoping to celebrate three resurrections on April 12, 2020. Here they are in order of how I believe the president has prioritized them: His own political future The American economy The resurrection of Jesus Trump knows that […]
Is Capitalism Good for Us?
Here is a very interesting debate between Mary Hirschfeld and Eugene McCarraher at Villanova University. Hirscheld is the author of Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy. McCarraher is the author of The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the […]
David Bentley Hart Reviews Eugene McCarraher’s *The Enchantments of Mammon*
And he loves it. Here is a taste of Hart‘s review of McCarraher‘s new book: The Enchantments of Mammon is a magnificent book. It is, before all else, a sheer marvel of patient scholarship, history on a grand scale and in […]
The Author’s Corner with Scott Huffard
Scott Huffard is Program Coordinator of History and Associate Professor of History at Lees-McRae College. This interview is based on his new book, Engines of Redemption: Railroads and the Reconstruction of Capitalism in the New South (The University of North […]
I’ll End This Debate Right Here: Jesus Was Not a Socialist
It looks like Liberty University’s Falkirk Center wants to stage a debate between Charlie Kirk and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove over whether Jesus was a socialist. Here is a taste of Jack Jenkins’s piece at Religion News Service: Charlie Kirk says no. […]
Eugene Debs, Bernie Sanders, and Anticapitalism
Jamelle Bouie’s recent piece at The New York Times is worth your time. It is important to remember that many socialists in United States history, including Debs and Sanders, believed they were defending American ideals. Here is a taste of “The Enduring […]
Kate Bowler on Evangelical Women Celebrities
Duke Divinity School’s Kate Bowler keeps churning out books. Her latest is The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities. Over at Christianity Today, Liberty University’s Karen Swallow Prior interviews Bowler about her new book. Here is a taste: Despite […]
Slavery Was America’s First Big Business
Cornell University history professor Ed Baptist talks with Vox‘s P.R. Lockhart about his 2014 book The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. Here is a taste: P.R. Lockhart When you talk about the sort […]
Moral Capitalism
Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin points us toward a better way: What kind of economy do Democrats believe in? Joe Biden calls for “stronger labor laws and a tax code that rewards [the] middle class.” Bernie Sanders wants to raise taxes […]
Where Does History Go From Here?
Over at the Boston Review, historian and essayist Maximillian Alvarez argues that both pro-Trumpers and anti-Trumpers are still operating within Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” argument. Here is a taste: Fukuyama’s take on the “end of history,” to be fair, has […]
Was America Born Capitalist?
We are working hard to get Princeton University historian Daniel Rodgers on the podcast. He is the author of As a City Upon a Hill: The Story of America’s Most Famous Lay Sermon. (He will be featured on the Author’s […]
The Author’s Corner with Harry Stout
Harry Stout is the Jonathan Edwards Professor of American Religious History at Yale University. This interview is based on his new book, American Aristocrats: A Family, a Fortune, and the Making of American Capitalism (Basic Books, 2017). JF: What led you to […]
Congressional Budget Office: 22 Million People Will Lose Healthcare By 2026
The Washington Post reports on this. A few quick thoughts: The defenders of the Senate bill to replace the Affordable Care Act believe that the free market is the answer to all of our problems. They are free to believe this. […]