Evangelicalism

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

Leave a Comment / American Religion, Baptist History, Contemporary Connections, Evangelicalism, Featured /

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?

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“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

Leave a Comment / American Religion, Christian Patriarchy, Contemporary Connections, Evangelicalism, Women's History /

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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Jessica Hahn and Evangelical Silence on Sexual Abuse

Leave a Comment / #ChurchToo, #MeToo, Activism, American Religion, Articles & Essays, Christian Patriarchy, Contemporary Connections, Evangelicalism, Featured /

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

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Romans 8:31, Chris Tomlin, And The Faith Of A Medieval Woman

Leave a Comment / British History, Church History, Contemporary Connections, Evangelicalism, Medieval History, Women's History /

“Water You turned into wine; Opened the eyes of the blind; There’s no one like you; None like you; Into the darkness You shine; Out of the ashes we rise; There’s No one like you; None like you” In 2010 Chris Tomlin recorded these opening lyrics to “Our God” at a Passion Conference. He couldn’t

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Burning Witches in Medieval Europe?

Leave a Comment / British History, Christian Patriarchy, Church History, Evangelicalism, Medieval History /

Kilkenny lies deep in southern Ireland. Its history lies just as deep in the medieval past. The thirteenth-century cathedral of St. Canice stands next to a 9th-century monastic tower; a castle still sits on the site of William Marshall’s 12th-century Norman foundations; and a fourteenth-century inn, Kyteler’s Inn, still operates in the old town.The inn

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An Ordinary Preaching Woman in a Texas Baptist Church, c. 1930

Leave a Comment / American Religion, Baptist History, Christian Patriarchy, Evangelicalism, Local History, Texas History, Women's History /

In a 2006 interview, Wayne Grudem argued that female leaders in the church (especially pastors) are disobeying God’s word and thus open to “the withdrawal of God’s hand of protection and blessing.” As Grudem explained: “A woman who serves as a pastor, preaching to both men and women, is disobeying the word of God. There

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The Medieval Counsel of Biblical Womanhood

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The Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood exploded my twitter feed last week. As a Texan with both friends and family in Houston, I really just wanted to see the update on Hurricane Harvey. But the Nashville Statement dominated my news feed. I confess after scrolling through headline after headline I mostly just felt tired.

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Evangelical Silence and Trump: A Reformation Irony

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“Trump’s religious advisers have been mostly silent.” Tom Gjelten wrote these words for NPR just days ago, in his aptly titled article “Trump’s Evangelical Advisers Stand By their Man.” In the aftermath of Trump’s shocking response to Charlottesville, the silence emanating from his Evangelical Advisory Board screamed. It seemed even louder after prominent business leaders

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Should Women Rule? Netflix’s The Crown and Complementarian Theology

Leave a Comment / American Religion, British History, Christian Patriarchy, Contemporary Connections, Evangelicalism, Women's History /

Riding the London Eye is deceptively peaceful. The city that slowly unfolds below seems a different place from the noise and heat of the crowded South Bank. I always look first for Cleopatra’s Needle, the 3500 year-old Egyptian obelisk shipped to England in the nineteenth-century and hoisted along the Victorian Embankment Gardens. The startling incongruity

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