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anxiousbench

Thomas Kidd

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May 2016

May 31, 2016

“Ask Jesus into Your Heart”: A History of the Sinner’s Prayer

[This week’s post comes from my Patheos archives.] Many an evangelical pastor has concluded a...

May 24, 2016

Martin Luther King and the History of Religious Extremism

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" would make it on my list of...

May 17, 2016

Reassessing the Boston Tea Party

The Boston Tea Party of 1773 was the most provocative Patriot action before the start...

May 10, 2016

Edmund Burke, Trumpism, and the Worst of Both Worlds

I recently read Yuval Levin's engaging The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the...

May 03, 2016

The Stunning Statistics of the Slave Trade

One of the most surprising revelations to me during my research for my new book...

April 2016

April 26, 2016

Was Jonathan Edwards Wrong About Interpreting God’s Providence?

This post is gratefully re-shared from Reformation 21, where it originally ran. Like many eighteenth-century...

April 19, 2016

The GOP Race: Is Ted Cruz Our Best Option?

When we were in St. Andrews, Scotland for the Spring 2015 semester, I remember our...

April 12, 2016

Culture-Changing Christians

Back in 2012, when Mitt Romney lost the presidential election, many disappointed supporters – including...

April 05, 2016

The New United States: A “Christian Nation”?

Politicians and pop history writers squabble endlessly about whether America was founded as a "Christian...

March 2016

March 29, 2016

Who Is the Mormon Jesus?

In today's post I am talking with Anxious Bench blogger and George Mason professor John...

March 28, 2016

On Theology and Wild Boar

This post will not be about Easter bunnies, but it will be about animals. In...

March 22, 2016

The Bible: Mass Distribution and Massive Ignorance?

Over at the Weekly Standard I reviewed John Fea's excellent new history of the American Bible...

March 15, 2016

Should You Apply to Graduate School?

Late spring is a good time for potential applicants to start thinking about applying to...

March 08, 2016

American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths

My new Yale University Press book American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths is 'in stock'...

March 01, 2016

How to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation

For professors, writing letters of recommendation is a constant part of the job. Wise undergraduate...

February 2016

February 23, 2016

The Constitution “Divinely Inspired”? Ben Franklin Answers

Last week I posted about a Ted Cruz rally at which Glenn Beck argued that the...

February 16, 2016

Ted Cruz: When Civil Religion Goes Too Far

Our fellow Patheos blogger Warren Throckmorton posted about recent comments Glenn Beck made at a...

February 09, 2016

Why the Founding Fathers Spoke the King James Bible

One of the besetting problems of "Christian America" history writing is that it often interprets...

February 02, 2016

The Perfect Religious President

There are so many discussions swirling around evangelicals' best choice for president that it makes...

January 2016

January 26, 2016

How Much Do You Need To Read Before Writing?

A reader and friend asked me recently about a key issue in the writing process:...

January 19, 2016

How Not to Market a Book

John Turner had an excellent post last week on book marketing for academics. I have...

January 12, 2016

Why I Joined Marco Rubio’s Religious Liberty Advisory Board

Many of you have heard that I have joined Senator Marco Rubio's Religious Liberty Advisory...

January 05, 2016

Donald Trump and the Crisis of American Populism

In the 1960s William F. Buckley famously quipped that he'd rather be governed by the...

December 2015

December 22, 2015

Christmas in 1776

From the Patheos archive: ‘Tis the season to argue about religion. Or more specifically, to...

December 15, 2015

Top Five Books on Benjamin Franklin

What are the best books on the ever-fascinating founder Benjamin Franklin? As I have been...

December 08, 2015

Ben Franklin, Anti-Catholicism, and the Founding of the University of Pennsylvania

Historians have generally cast the founding of the University of Pennsylvania (or the College of...

December 03, 2015

Woodrow Wilson, Race, and the Depravity of Human Nature

Today's guest post comes from Dr. Barry Hankins, professor of history at Baylor University. His religious...

December 01, 2015

Donald Trump and Monitoring Muslims

UPDATE: The topic of this post has taken on added urgency in light of the...

November 2015

November 24, 2015

This Thanksgiving, Stop Idolizing the Pilgrims

A couple of years ago at Christianity Today, I reviewed Robert Tracy McKenzie’s excellent book The First Thanksgiving. Here’s...

November 17, 2015

Islam: Inherently Violent?

The jihadist attacks in Paris have grieved and frightened the world again with the reality...

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