Patheos July 2026 Featured Writer: Dr. Joey Cochran

Last updated on: July 8, 2026 at 6:02 am by Alan Crandall

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Patheos July 2026 Featured Writer: Dr. Joey Cochran 2026-07-08T06:02:08-06:00 Alan Crandall

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Dr. Joey Cochran is a historian of religion, a General Editor of the Anxious Bench at Patheos, and a Visiting Instructor of History at Purdue University Northwest. Trained at Dallas Theological Seminary (Th.M.) and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Ph.D. in Church History), Cochran previously served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Wheaton College and as Assistant Director of the Jonathan Edwards Center at Trinity. He is an Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Fellow of the Center for Pastor Theologians, and an Associate of the Omohundro Institute — credentials that reflect a scholar equally at home in the archives of early modern religion and in the living debates of the contemporary church.

Cochran’s first monograph, Jonathan Edwards and Hebrews: A Harmonic Interpretation of Scripture (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2025), appears in the distinguished New Directions in Jonathan Edwards Studies series edited out of Yale. It explores how America’s most famous pastor-philosopher interpreted and applied the Epistle to the Hebrews to his ministerial context and wider global influence. His next book, Brand Evangelicals (Brazos Press, forthcoming), promises to be even more provocative — a brand history tracing evangelicals’ social, cultural, and political influence from the late 1930s to today. As Cochran wrote on the Bench, “Last week Brazos Press and I agreed on a title.” It’s the kind of project that treats evangelicalism not as a fixed identity but as a story still being told.

At Patheos, Cochran writes for the Anxious Bench on the Evangelical channel, where his range is part of the appeal — one week he’s writing about Calvin in Corinth, the next about Marilyn Monroe and the life of the mind. Beyond Jonathan Edwards, his research spans transatlantic histories of witch-hunting, Indigenous contact between Natives and colonial New England missionaries, revivalism, and the long arc of American intellectual thought. He has contributed to Fides et Historia, The Bulletin of Ecclesial Theology, Christianity Today, and the Center for Pastor Theologians Journal. You can explore his work at The Anxious Bench on Patheos.

When asked what he enjoyed about contributing to Patheos, he said, “I enjoy most the community of collaboration that takes place on Patheos. I enjoy reading other stellar contributors, learning from them, and continuing the conversation from my own articles.”

His advice for future Patheos Contributors: “Get involved in the collaborative community. Read other contributors. Link back to them. Comment on posts. Keep the conversation going.”

Read more at the Anxious Bench

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Patheos June 2026 Featured Writer: Dr. James F. McGrath