I love nativities. Every Thanksgiving my mother gives me a new nativity set to display. She gets them from the local Fair Trade store, so we now have scenes crafted by artisans in Kenya, Indonesia, Haiti, Guatemala, Vietnam, Peru, Nicagarua, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, India, as well as the United States. The clean lines and naked […]
Disrupting Our Nativity: Two Medieval Differences Read More »
Today we welcome Regina Wenger to the Anxious Bench. Regina is a doctoral student in the Baylor History department, currently studying with Barry Hankins and Elesha Coffman. This post was born in her seminar paper for my graduate course, and I asked her to share it with our readers. I want to share the story
A Tale of Two Mennonite Pastors: Siblings, Gender, and How to Disagree Read More »
We carved pumpkins again this year. I still had to clean out the insides, but this time my daughter carved the triangle eyes. I had to help with the teeth. My son opted out of carving entirely, aside from helping keep our Whippet from eating the pumpkins. He claims he doesn’t like the icky feeling
Why Evangelical Christians Are Afraid of Halloween Read More »
I was sitting on a picnic bench outside of the Navajo Nation capital when I read Scot McKnight’s tweet about Willow Creek. His comment that, “mismanagement, powermongering, threatening, and offering money for silence” should be themes “central to church leadership discussions” in seminaries really caught my attention. If you have followed my blogs for a
Here We Go Again: Willow Creek and Pastoral Accountability Read More »
For years, I attended complementarian churches. I kept telling myself that maybe things would change. I kept telling myself that I, as a woman who taught and had a career, set a positive example. I kept telling myself that complementarianism wasn’t misogyny. I kept telling myself that no church was perfect. I kept telling myself
My daughter and I were walking our new puppy when my phone buzzed. It was a twitter notification from my fellow blogger Chris Gehrz. He had tweeted about Beth Moore’s open letter. I stopped dead and started reading.This was a mistake. We had only had our new puppy a few days and hadn’t yet convinced
Today I am pleased to welcome Jonathan Root to The Anxious Bench. Jonathan Root is currently a postdoctoral teaching fellow at the University of Missouri. He received his PhD in history in spring 2016 at Mizzou. His dissertation is a history of the relationship between the prosperity gospel and American popular culture. The phrase, “I’m
Scamming for God? The Tale of (Another) Huckster Preacher Kirbyjon Caldwell Read More »
“Lord, I repent of ways I’ve been complicit in & contributed tomisogyny & sexism in the church by my cowardly and inordinate deference to male leaders in order to survive rather than simply appropriately respecting them as my brothers. Forgive me for being part of the problem.” Beth Moore tweeted (@BethMooreLPM) this just last week,
Meredith Stone, a Baptist female seminary professor, responded last week to John Piper. If you remember, John Piper recently posted the script of an interview on Desiring God. He argued that women should not teach at seminaries. Actually, that isn’t correct. John Piper argued that women are disqualified from teaching pastors because–according to his complementarian
Calling Out Sexual Harassment: The Implications Of Complementarianism Read More »
We are so pleased to welcome back John Wigger to the Anxious Bench. John Wigger is Professor of History at the University of Missouri and author of PTL: The Rise and Fall of the Evangelical Empire of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. #MeToo #ChurchToo In 1980 Jessica Hahn was sexually assaulted by one of the
Jessica Hahn and Evangelical Silence on Sexual Abuse Read More »