New Books In Biblical Studies

Just east of the Norwich-New London Turnpike in Uncasville, Connecticut, stands the Mohegan Congregational Church. By most accounts, it’s little different than the thousands of white-steepled structures dotting the New England landscape: the same high-backed wooden chairs, high ceilings, images of lordly white men. To the careful observer, there is one notable distinction. Just above a traditional cross near the front entrance hangs a single, perfect eagle feather. The juxtaposition might be startling for some. But as Brown historian Linford D. Fisher beautifully illuminates in The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America(Oxford University Press, 2012), Native cultures in New England – and, indeed, most everywhere – are highly incorporative, blending elements of Christian religious practice with their own. This was never more the case than during the eighteenth century evangelical revival known to scholars as the First Great Awakening. A significan

Are you looking for a good Hanukkah gift? A good Christmas gift? Heck, any gift? Or maybe you just want to read a terrific book? Well I’ve got just the ticket: Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin‘s, El Iluminado: A Graphic Novel (Basic Books, 2012). Stavans and Scheinkin team up to perform a minor miracle: they not only tell the story of hispanic crypto-Jews (conversos, marranos) in the Old and New Worlds, but they do it in the most entertaining, compelling way possible–with a great, moving, thought-provoking, and often funny (yes, funny) mystery. This is how popular history should be done. El Iluminado is–or should be–a model for all those scholars who want to bring their work to the public. I strongly urge you to take a look at the book and perhaps give it to someone you love.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In December of 1975, Agnes Bojaxhiu, also known as Mother Teresa, appeared on the cover of TIME magazine with a caption that read: “Living Saints.” Mary Johnson, a teenage girl at the time, saw this cover and was drawn in by what she saw as a wonderful life of meaning, love, and service. Two years later, she had joined the Missionaries of Charity, the religious community that Mother Teresa started in 1948, and there remained for 20 years. Though she fervently wanted to be a good nun, she found that the rules imposed upon the Sisters were often oppressive, unkind and unnecessary. In her memoir, An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service and an Authentic Life (Spiegel and Grau, 2011), Mary takes us on her journey as a Missionary of Charity, judging kindly but not failing to criticize the community – and the Church – that was her life for many years. Though now a humanist and writer in the secular world, Mary shares with us what it was like to be a nun in w

Every person must confront death; the only question is how that person will do it. In our culture (I speak as an American here), we don’t really do a very good job of it. We face death by fighting it by any and every means at our disposal. Why we do this is hard to figure, as the struggle against death is often terribly painful (not to mention costly) and always futile. In his new book In Heaven as it is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (Oxford University Press, 2012), Samuel Morris Brown tells us how Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, told his followers to prepare for and confront death. It didn’t come to him all at once. A certain amountof what would become Mormon dogma was revealed to him; a certain amount was borrowed from other creeds; and a certain amount was Smith’s own invention. The doctrine he evolved was profoundly humane. He rejected the idea that we would meet our maker alone. God gave us families and he would never,

When I was in Seminary I was assigned many theological tomes to read and one was especially difficult to get through. It was Systematic Theology by Charles Hodge. This work was dense, long, and I must confess, wound up mostly unread. So when I came across Dr. Paul Gutjahr‘s Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy (Oxford University Press, 2011), I knew I had to find out why someone would write a biography about this man. It turns out there is much more to Hodge than I imagined. Dr. Gutjahr sets Charles Hodge in context and takes us through all of his 80 years letting us see into his family, friendships and battles. He concludes showing how Hodge is still influencing Christianity in America today.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Haykin‘s book The Reformers and Puritans as Spiritual Mentors (Joshua Press, 2012) attempts to create a “useable past” by highlighting the lives of several Reformers and Puritans. Dr. Haykin combines the narrative of the past with issues that are of importance to the Church today such as the role of the Holy Spirit, the place of marriage, soul care and the value of the Bible. This book will be a valuable read not only for people interested in Church history, but anyone who would be guided by the past.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her shocking new book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children (Public Affairs, 2012), Katherine Stewart describes how factions of the Christian Right, through groups such as the Good News Club, are seeking to indoctrinate children in public schools with their brand of fundamentalism. When a Good News Club came to a public school in her community, Stewart decided to investigate. The Club, under the umbrella of the Child Evangelism Fellowship, manages to find loopholes in state/church separation and find their way into public schools under the guise of being a non-denominational Bible studies program. Once there, they seek to build roots in order to reach as many children as possible. In her research, Stewart visited communities all over the United States where Good News Clubs had been present, and found that they had caused nothing but strife and divisiveness among kids, teachers and parents. She also followed the missionaries of the Good News Club on the

You’ve got to be pretty creative to get anything like “holy war” out of the New Testament, what with all that trespass-forgiving, cheek-turning, and neighbor-loving. By all appearances Jesus didn’t want his followers to fight for their faith, but rather to die for it as he had. And during the first three centuries of Christianity–in the time of the Roman persecution–that’s just what they did. “To die in Christ is to live,” wrote the Apostle Paul. And it seems a lot of early Christians believed him for they sought martyrdom. Jesus passively gave his life; and they passively gave theirs. What could be more fitting? All this passivity makes the Crusades seem very strange indeed. If Christ’s message was one of peace, what in the world were Christians doing taking up arms in the his name? In his excellent Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse(Basic Books, 2011), Jay Rubenstein explains that the reason they did so had everything

What are ethics? What are morals? How are they constituted, practiced, and regulated? How do they change over time? My own research is informed by these question; so is Douglas Rogers‘. So it was only natural that I would be drawn to Rogers’ new book The Old Faith and the Russian Land: A Historical Ethnography of Ethics in the Urals (Cornell UP, 2009). I was not disappointed. Blending history with ethnography, Rodgers carefully examines how the priestless Old Believer community in the small Russian town of Sepych adapted its ethical practices in three historical episodes. First, the abolition of serfdom. It caused a spiritual schism among the failthful. Second, The coming of Soviet power, and particularly the violent, forced resettlement of collectivization, anti-religious campaigns, and the labor incentives of socialism. Soviet power broadened generational gaps within Sepych, though, paradoxically, it also strengthened the Old Belief in Sepych (via the help of Soviet archaeographers). Finally, th

The lives, let alone the fates, of Imperial Russia’s priesthood have garnered little attention among historians. I think the reason is partially because the research of most Russian historians has been focused on explaining the country’s torturous modernization. The orthodox clergy were hardly (so the story goes) modernizers, so they could be ignored. I, too, accepted the clergy as a moribund social caste after reading I. S. Belliustin’s Description of the Clergy in Rural Russia in graduate school. A parish priest himself, Belliutsin lambasted his colleagues for their drunkenness, parasitism, and utter disregard for the souls of their flock. Only Bolshevik anti-religious propaganda could surpass the passion of Belliutsin’s indictment. Enter Laurie Manchester‘s Holy Fathers, Secular Sons: Clergy, Intelligentsia, and the Modern Self in Revolutionary Russia (Northern Illinois UP, 2008). In this fascinating book, Manchester traces the paths of the sons of priests (popovichi) out of t

There’s a quip that goes “Christianity is probably a great religion. Someone should really try it.” The implication, of course, is that most people who call themselves Christians aren’t very Christian at all. And, in truth, it’s hard to be a good Christian, what with all that loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, and helping the poor. It’s particularly hard to pull off in the modern world. But some have tried, at least in part. Foremost among them are the Christian pacifists. They are the subject of Kip Kosek’s wonderful book Acts of Conscience: Christian Nonviolence and Modern American Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2009). Kip shows that the pacifists–more specifically members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FoR)–were an oddly influential group. They utterly failed in their primary mission, that is, to create a world without war. They themselves didn’t fight, but that didn’t stop everyone else from going at it hammer and to

In the Gospels, the disciples come to Jesus and ask him about the End of Days. He’s got bad news and good. First, everything was going to go hell, so to say: “And Jesus answered . . . many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” (Mathew 24: 4-8 KJV). But then, Jesus says, things are going to get a lot better for those who hold fast: “But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” (Mathew 24: 13-14 KJV) Now you may think all of this is allegory. But people in the Middle Ages didn’t.

Today we talk to J. D. Bowers of Northern Illinois University about his book Joseph Priestley and English Unitarianism in America (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007). Against the received wisdom, Bowers argues that American Unitarianism did not emerge solely from indigenous Boston-based Congregationalism. Instead, he shows that Joseph Priestly and English Unitarianism exercised considerable influence on the church throughout the nineteenth century, despite what the Unitarians themselves claimed. Mark D. McGarvie of the University of Richmond calls the book “beautifully and persuasively written,” and Daniel Walker Howe of Oxford and UCLA says Bower’s work is “A resolute and positive reaffirmation of Joseph Priestly’s place in the heritage of American Unitarianism.” Please become a fan of “New Books in History” on Facebook if you haven’t already.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices