Alvin Plantinga on “Fundamentalism”
Over 20 years ago, the great philosopher Alvin Plantinga gave us an accurate summary of the way in which the term “fundamentalist” is often deployed as a lazy slur rather than a serious argument: We...
View ArticleWhy American Church Membership Is Plummeting
Much of what we know—or think we know—about American religion is shaped by surveys and polls. The news media loves these polls, and so do many pastors. The latest instance is a Gallup poll showing...
View ArticleWhen Martyn Lloyd-Jones Confronted a Pastor Who Loved Controversy and...
Iain Murray recounts a meeting between pastors T. T. Shields (1873–1955) of Toronto and Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899–1981) of London, in a story that will sound very relevant to our current discourse. T....
View ArticleA Modernist Christian Nationalist: John Wilsey on John Foster Dulles’s Faith
Today I am interviewing John D. Wilsey, associate professor of church history at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the author most recently of God’s Cold Warrior: The Life and Faith of...
View ArticleHow to Counter Anti-Evangelical Hostility
We live in a social media-fueled era of anti-evangelical (and anti-Catholic, and anti-Orthodox Jewish) sentiment. It’s not unusual to see tweets, clickbaity articles, and sensational books that seem...
View ArticleA Guide to Choosing a Christian College
Today’s guest post is from Dr. Perry Glanzer, Professor of Educational Foundations at Baylor University, and a Resident Scholar with Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion. He is the author or...
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Who Was William Jennings Bryan?
Historian Gary Scott Smith of Grove City College has edited a monumental three-volume reference work, entitled American Religious History: Belief and Society through Time (ABC-CLIO, 2020). [The set is...
View ArticleWho Is a Fundamentalist?
Who gets called a “fundamentalist” depends heavily on location and context. I teach at a “moderate” Baptist university (critics would call it “liberal”), where I am likely to be perceived by some as a...
View ArticleNew and Notable Books: Summer 2021
Here’s my latest edition of New and Notable Books. As a reminder, these suggestions focus on recent books in history, especially American history and religious/church history. These books certainly may...
View ArticleSouthern Baptist Fundamentalism, Then and Now
Today’s guest post comes from Nathan Finn. Dr. Finn serves as the Provost/ Dean of the University Faculty at North Greenville University in Tigerville and Greer, SC. This was originally posted at...
View ArticleInterpreting the Second Great Awakening
The National Association of Scholars recently asked me to participate in an online panel discussion on the Second Great Awakening. The other panelists were Robert Caldwell of Southwestern Baptist...
View ArticleAndrew Walls (1928-2021) and World Christianity
Andrew Walls, one of the greatest scholars of world Christianity and missiology, has passed away at the age of 93. During his career he taught at colleges and universities in Sierra Leone, Nigeria,...
View ArticleSouthern Baptists and the Founding of Israel
Today’s post is a review I did of Walker Robins’ fascinating book Between Dixie and Zion: Southern Baptists and Palestine before Israel. This review appeared in the journal Church History, in the June...
View ArticleCarl Trueman and the Evangelical Mind
Carl Trueman is one of the most interesting Christian thinkers of our time. A professor at Grove City College, and author of books including the extraordinary The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self:...
View ArticleWhat the Lord’s “Imminent” Return Means
A.T. Pierson was arguably the most influential advocate of Christian missions in the late nineteenth century. As a key organizer of the Student Volunteer Movement, Pierson coined the “watchword” of the...
View ArticleEvangelical Worship: From War to Mosaic?
The average churchgoing evangelical has been one of the casualties of academic and journalistic studies of “evangelicals” in the Trump era. The obsession of the past half decade has been with the...
View ArticleThe Time Martin Luther King Prayed at the Billy Graham Crusade
On July 18, 1957, the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama—the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—gave a public prayer at Madison Square Garden as part of the long-running Billy...
View ArticleThe Golden Rule and the Writing of History
The Roman Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft once said that if he ever became a college president, his first item of business would be to require every student to read Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a...
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Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet – An Interview with Bruce Gordon
In this post I am interviewing Dr. Bruce Gordon about his new biography, Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet (Yale University Press). Dr. Gordon is the author of many books on the Reformation, and is Titus...
View ArticleJesus, John Wayne, and the Failure to Love
Historian John Wilsey, in a perceptive review of Kristen Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne, says that he offers his criticism through the lens of one of the most powerful essays he has ever read. The essay...
View ArticleRussian Degradation and Ukrainian Hope: The Example of Christian Higher...
This guest post is by Dr. Perry Glanzer, Professor of Educational Foundations at Baylor University. Dr. Glanzer is the author of books including The Quest for Russia’s Soul: Evangelicals and Moral...
View ArticleEvangelicals, The Founding Fathers, and George Washington’s Hair
This guest post is by Keith Beutler, professor of history at Missouri Baptist University. Dr. Beutler is the author of George Washington’s Hair: How Early Americans Remembered the Founders (University...
View ArticleThe Danger of Politicized Pastors
We often think of today’s politics as especially fractious. But at least by the 1800 presidential election, America had already adopted no-holds-barred campaigns. In particular, the 1800 election...
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What ‘Deist’ Meant to Thomas Jefferson
In the 18th century, deist did not always entail the idea of an absent “clockmaker” god. I addressed this point in a post at Cato Unbound: People in 18th-century Anglo-America did not always use our...
View ArticleWhy John Was Not a Baptist: The 7 Irreconcilable Differences Between John...
The following guest post is by Timothy Haupt, lead pastor of First Baptist Church in Nixa, Missouri. He recently defended his doctoral dissertation at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary entitled,...
View ArticleThe ‘Jefferson Bible’ and a Founder’s Skepticism
The “Jefferson Bible,” or “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth” is arguably the most controversial religious book in American history. Although some popular Christian writers have tried to claim...
View ArticleIs the Declaration of Independence a Christian Document?
This post is an excerpt of an editorial that originally appeared in the Dallas Morning News. The role of religion in America’s founding is more controversial today than ever. The riot at the U.S....
View ArticleCharles Spurgeon’s Battle with Depression
The following is excerpted from Randy Alcorn’s foreword to Charles Spurgeon, Encouragement for the Depressed, in the Crossway Short Classics series. Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) preached to...
View ArticleChuck Colson: A Life Redeemed
Ten years ago, at the age of 80, Charles Wendell (“Chuck”) Colson (1931–2012) died. Nearly 50 years ago, Chuck Colson was born again. His memoir Born Again was published in 1975. Earlier that year he...
View ArticleChristianity, Warfare, and American National Identity: An Interview with...
In this post I am interviewing Benjamin Wetzel, assistant professor of history at Taylor University, about his new book American Crusade: Christianity, Warfare, and National Identity, 1860–1920...
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Fact-Checking Randall Balmer’s Urban Legend on the Real Origin of the...
Guest post by Jonathan Whitehead. In 2006, Professor Randall Balmer claimed to reveal a dirty little secret about the origins of the “religious right.” “They’ll tell you it was abortion,” blared a...
View ArticleFrom ‘Wretched’ to ‘Needy’: Changing a Classic Hymn
Ever since churches began singing hymns, people have been changing the words to hymns. This is often for the purpose of modifying the theological content of the song in question. Obviously doing this...
View ArticleCharles Spurgeon the Pastor
This interview is with my colleague Geoff Chang, about his new book Spurgeon the Pastor: Recovering a Biblical and Theological Vision for Ministry (B&H, 2022). Dr. Chang is Assistant Professor of...
View ArticleTradition, the Bible, and America’s Debate over Slavery
This guest post is by Dr. Paul Gutacker, director of the Brazos Fellows Program based in Waco, Texas. Gutacker has a Ph.D. in History from Baylor University, and is the author of the new book The Old...
View ArticleThe Scandal of the American Evangelical Intellectual
D. A. Carson, writing in his 1996 book The Gagging of God, expresses appreciation for Mark Noll’s 1994 book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. He does, however, think there was a missing angle in...
View Article“Amazing Grace” at 250: An Interview with Bruce Hindmarsh
Today’s interview is with Dr. Bruce Hindmarsh, the James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology and Professor of the History of Christianity at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia. He is...
View Article5 Great Books to Read Before Visiting Israel
In 2019, almost a million Americans – many of them evangelicals – visited Israel. If you are like me, when you’re getting ready to visit another country, you want to read some things to get oriented to...
View ArticleChoosing the Right College: A Guide for Christian Parents
One of the most anxiety-inducing choices for parents, including Christian parents, is the selection of a college for children. Public school? Community college? Private? Christian? Vocational school?...
View ArticleGiving It All and Getting It All: Puritan Women and Their Spiritual Practices
Today’s guest post is from Jenny-Lyn de Klerk (PhD, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary). She is the author of 5 Puritan Women: Portraits of Faith and Love (Crossway, 2023) and has contributed to...
View ArticleConfessions of Faith and the Baptist Tradition
One of the most-cited arguments against Baptist standards of doctrine and practice is that Baptists have historically opposed confessions of faith. This anti-confessional argument has been used by...
View ArticleHow Three Friends Dropped Out of Princeton Theological Seminary, Joined the...
Daniel Fuller died on June 21, 2023, at the age of 97. In my 2015 doctoral dissertation at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary on the four key influences on John Piper’s life and thought, I have...
View ArticleThe Reformers Were Not Innovators: An Interview with Matthew Barrett
In this post I am interviewing my colleague Matthew Barrett about his new book The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Dr. Barrett is Professor of...
View ArticleChoosing a Christian College: An In-Depth Guide
Today’s post is from Dr. Perry Glanzer. He is professor of Educational Foundations at Baylor University and the editor-in-chief of Christian Scholar’s Review. Professor Glanzer is the author of books...
View ArticleA New History of the Baptist Mission in Burma
This guest post is by Obbie Tyler Todd, who originally published a longer version of this review at the Journal of Religious History. The history of missionary movements has long been an inspiration...
View ArticleThe Desegregation of Dallas Theological Seminary
This guest post is from Shawn Varghese. Varghese earned a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas, and a ThM from Dallas Theological Seminary. The year 2024 commemorates the centennial of the...
View ArticleA Christian Nation? Religion, Institutions, and the Early Republic
In this post I am interviewing Dr. Miles Smith, assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College, about his new book Religion and Republic: Christian America from the Founding to the Civil War. [TK]...
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The Man Who Introduced American Evangelicals to C. S. Lewis
Clyde S. Kilby joined the faculty of Wheaton College in 1935 at the age of 33 as an assistant professor of English and dean of men. In 1943 Kilby read a new book published by C. S. Lewis, entitled The...
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How America’s Premier Theologian Interpreted God’s Providence after Lincoln...
On July 13, 2024, former President Donald Trump was very nearly assassinated on live television by a sniper’s bullet. Historian Niall Ferguson writes: A slight gust of wind, a tremor of the assassin’s...
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Why College Students Lack a Sense of Purpose
Today’s guest post is from Dr. Perry Glanzer, Professor of Educational Foundations at Baylor University. Growing numbers of young people today lack a sense of purpose. The Wall Street Journal reported...
View ArticleCharles Spurgeon and “the Army of God”
In this post I am interviewing Dr. Geoff Chang, Assistant Professor of Church History and Historical Theology and the Curator of the Spurgeon Library at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Chang’s...
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