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February 2021

February 08, 2021

Centering Religion in American History: An Interview with Benjamin Park

Despite ongoing public commentary about how the rise of religious "nones" reveals that "America lost...

February 04, 2021

Tornado God: An Interview with Peter Thuesen

We are pleased to welcome Peter J. Thuesen to the Anxious Bench. Thuesen is Professor...

February 02, 2021

Barack Obama’s A Promised Land as a Civil Religious Memoir

Reviewing Barack Obama's first book about his presidency, Chris found A Promised Land something like...

January 2021

January 19, 2021

What Were We Thinking? A Brief Intellectual History of Christianity in the Trump Era

As the Trump presidency enters its last day, we look back at some of the...

January 06, 2021

Conservative Men and Women Together? Two Books on Evangelicals and Politics

I ended my Baylor graduate course last semester with a one-two punch of books on...

January 05, 2021

Is My Biography of Charles Lindbergh Actually an Autobiography of Chris Gehrz?

“All my writing—and yours,” claimed one composition instructor, “is autobiography.” So I've often wondered the...

December 2020

December 22, 2020

The Christian Eyewitnesses to Hiroshima

While less than 1% of the Japanese population followed Christ when John Hersey's account of...

December 17, 2020

God’s Law and Order: A Conversation with Aaron Griffith

Aaron Griffith is assistant professor of history at Sattler College and the author of God's Law and...

December 10, 2020

Confronting Toxic Christianity

The latest scandal to rock American evangelicalism is more of the same but with a...

December 05, 2020

Outward and Inward Baptism

John Robinson, pastor of the English separatist congregation in Leiden that partly transplanted itself to...

November 2020

November 24, 2020

Christmas Shopping for Christian History Buffs

Looking for gift idea for the Christian history buff in your life? Chris has some...

November 19, 2020

Generosity for Our Own Good

Today we welcome Abram Van Engen to the Anxious Bench. Van Engen is Associate Professor of English...

October 2020

October 21, 2020

Strange Rites and American Religion

Sleep No More was different. You didn't just watch a show or read a book...

October 15, 2020

Veritas: A Cautionary Tale

In 2012, Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King made international news with a "Gospel of...

September 2020

September 30, 2020

American Girl, American Religion, and Potential Plots for Courtney, SoCal Gamer Girl of the ’80s

In case the popularity of Stranger Things and Cobra Kai and the renewed appreciation of...

September 18, 2020

Breaking Bread with the Dead and the Living

Alan Jacobs writes books with pretentious titles. How to Think. I didn’t know what to...

September 17, 2020

Jesus and John Wayne: An Afterword

Back in June, in anticipation of the book’s release, I published Jesus and John Wayne:...

September 15, 2020

The Banality of Goodness

“Hard-boiled” is the last adjective anyone would use to describe me. I get uncomfortable watching...

September 10, 2020

The Jefferson Bible: An Interview with Peter Manseau

Peter Manseau is Curator of American Religious History at the Smithsonian. His most recent book...

August 2020

August 20, 2020

Dangerous Christian Nationalism? A conversation between Abram Van Engen and Os Guinness

Last month, Abram Van Engen contributed a post here at the Anxious Bench on “Os...

August 19, 2020

Recent Books on Women & Gender in American Religious History

Next week Baylor’s fall semester begins. Courtesy of the pandemic, stress among both students and...

August 12, 2020

Jesus and John Wayne: A Guide for Biblical Manhood

A good book can turn your life around. I just finished Jesus and John Wayne...

July 2020

July 09, 2020

About Those Manly Evangelical Protectors…

A couple weeks back, evangelical Twitter erupted with the drama unfolding around Aimee Byrd and...

May 2020

May 28, 2020

Asian Americans and American Religion: Recommendations for Your Summer Reading and Fall Syllabi

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and in many ways, it has...

May 07, 2020

Native Americans, the Ten Lost Tribes, and the Book of Mormon

“What became of the ten tribes of Israel,” asked former Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow, “when...

March 2020

March 12, 2020

City on a Hill: From John Winthrop to Donald Trump

I am excited to welcome Abram Van Engen to The Anxious Bench. Van Engen, Associate...

February 2020

February 27, 2020

Tom Holland, Dominion

There are many ways to assess works of history. Does a book make a strong...

February 13, 2020

Speaking with the Dead

Today The Anxious Bench welcomes Erik R. Seeman, Professor of History at the University at...

January 2020

January 30, 2020

Evangelicals Incorporated: An Interview with Daniel Vaca

Who are evangelicals? How did the meaning of evangelicalism take shape over the course of...

December 2019

December 26, 2019

Coming Soon: 2020 Must-Reads in Christianity and Politics

The frenzied commentary around Mark Galli's Christianity Today editorial has not only revealed widely diverging opinions...