Articles & Essays

What Will Evangelicals Say to Jesus?

“White Jesus has blood on him.” Angela Tarango, Associate Professor of Religion at Trinity University, said this during the Conference on Faith and History’s 2019 panel for the American Historical Association meeting in Chicago last weekend. The panel (which I was so excited to have organized) featured Jennifer Graber’s excellent and provocative book The Gods […]

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A Tale of Two Mennonite Pastors: Siblings, Gender, and How to Disagree

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

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Why Evangelical Christians Are Afraid of Halloween

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

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My First Sermon: The Faith of a Woman

I teach and research sermons. Two weeks ago, on September 11, I had the privilege of preaching my first sermon at Truett seminary. I am so thankful for seminaries like Truett which affirm and actively support women in ministry. Although my sermon text stands as I originally wrote it (including the section I just jotted

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Here We Go Again: Willow Creek and Pastoral Accountability

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

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Sorry, John Piper, (Medieval) Christianity Doesn’t Have A Masculine Feel

A carved image, about two feet tall, stands alone in a glass case in the Cluny Museum in Paris. At first it seems a typical image of the Madonna and Child. Both look straight ahead, holding the gaze of the viewer. Their matching golden robes fade so easily into the golden background that it is

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Is There Hope for Evangelical Women?

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

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Scamming for God? The Tale of (Another) Huckster Preacher Kirbyjon Caldwell

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

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Will Beth Moore Help Save Evangelicalism?

“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,

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Calling Out Sexual Harassment: The Implications Of Complementarianism

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

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