New Books In Christian Studies

In 2014, the cattle rancher Cliven Bundy entered the national spotlight after a showdown against federal officials over grazing rights on public lands. Two years later, his sons seized the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon and occupied it for forty days with militia and sovereign citizen groups. As journalists rushed to the scene, trying to make sense of the motivations behind their anti-government politics, Betsy Gaines Quammen, a historian working on her history Ph.D., knew something was amiss. She had spent hours at the Bundy home, interviewing them for her dissertation on Mormon settlement in the West. She knew the Bundy’s rooted their politics in their Mormon faith, but their religious attitudes made few popular headlines. In her new book, American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God & Public Lands in the West (Torrey House Press, 2020), Quammen situates the Bundy standoff within the long and convoluted history of Mormon migration into the American West—and provides an exciting new take on religion in modern America

John D. Caputo has a long career as one of the preeminent postmodern philosophers in America. The author of such books as Radical Hermeneutics, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, and The Weakness of God, Caputo now reflects on his spiritual journey from a Catholic altar boy in 1950s Philadelphia to a philosopher after the death of God. Part spiritual autobiography, part homily on what he calls the “nihilism of grace,” Hoping Against Hope (Fortress Press, 2015) calls believers and nonbelievers alike to participate in the “praxis of the kingdom of God,” which Caputo says we must pursue “without why.” Caputo’s conversation partners in this volume include Lyotard, Derrida, and Hegel, but also earlier versions of himself: Jackie, a young altar boy, and Brother Paul, a novice in a religious order. Caputo traces his own journey from faith through skepticism to hope, after the “death of God.” In the end, Caputo doesn’t want to do away with religion; he wants to redeem religion and to reinvent religion for a po

Beginner's Guide to New Testament Studies (Baker Academic, 2020) is an accessible and balanced introduction that helps readers sort out key views on the most important debated issues in New Testament studies. Well-known New Testament scholar Nijay Gupta fairly presents the spectrum of viewpoints on thirteen topics and offers reflections on why scholars disagree on these matters. Written to be accessible to students and readers without advanced training in New Testament studies, this book will serve as an excellent supplementary text for New Testament introduction courses. Dr. Nijay Gupta is Associate Professor of New Testament at Portland Seminary at George Fox University. Dr. Gupta lives in Portland, OR. He can be found on Twitter @NijayKGupta Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @

Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. Brophy, is the first edited collection of scholarly essays devoted solely to the histories and legacies of this subject on North American campuses and in their Atlantic contexts. Gathering together contributions from scholars, activists, and administrators, the volume combines two broad bodies of work: (1) historically based interdisciplinary research on the presence of slavery at higher education institutions in terms of the development of proslavery and antislavery thought and the use of slave labor; and (2) analysis on the ways in which the legacies of slavery in institutions of higher education continued in the post–Civil War era to the present day. The collection features broadly themed essays on issues of religion, economy, and the regional slave trade of the Caribbean. It also includes case studies of slavery’s influence on specific institutions, such as P

The myth of Jews killing Christian children emerged in 1144 CE, with the death of a boy named William in Norwich, England. Over the course of several centuries, this myth gained traction and became firmly rooted throughout medieval and early modern Europe. In Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth (Harvard University Press, 2020), Magda Teter traces the history of this myth and analyzes how accusations of ritual murder have followed Jews from the 12th century to the contemporary period. Magda Teter is Professor of History and Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies at Fordham University. Lindsey Jackson is a PhD student at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robert Elmer, who is a communications specialist at Seattle Pacific University, a prolific writer of historical fiction, and the author of over fifty published titles, has published a ground-breaking anthology of prayers that he has collected from English and American puritans. The value of Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans (Lexham Press, 2020) is that it provides access into a world of religious practice that is otherwise lost – many puritans refusing on principle to put their prayers to paper. Trawling through published sermons and other sources, Elmer discovered prayers reflecting a huge range of contexts, situations, and geographical and denominational background. Piercing heaven: Prayers of the puritans organises these prayers in thematic sections. Tune in to find out why these prayers are so surprising – and what they tell us about the interior life of the hotter sort of English and American protestants. Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research intere

America’s most famous hymn was created in very unusual circumstances. Julia Ward Howe had travelled close to the front line and had witnessed a skirmish between Union and Confederate troops. Returning to her hotel, she entered a reverie, and, as she later explained it, was inspired to write new lyrics to a popular marching song. Her new composition – subsequently entitled “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” – described an almost apocalyptic intervention in which the evil of slavery would be thoroughly defeated. But the song took on a life of its own. Taken up in new causes, and internationally, the song that pronounced divine vengeance on the southern armies was considered as a national anthem for the United States before becoming an anthem for international peace. In this episode, we are joined by Richard M. Gamble, the Anna Margaret Ross Alexander Professor of History and Politics at Hillsdale College, MI, to talk about his outstanding new work, A Fiery Gospel: The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the Road to

In Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion (University of New Mexico Press, 2019), Brian A. Stauffer reconstructs the history of Mexico's forgotten "Religionero" rebellion of 1873-1877, an armed Catholic challenge to the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. An essentially grassroots movement--organized by indigenous, Afro-Mexican, and mestizo parishioners in Mexico's central-western Catholic heartland--the Religionero rebellion erupted in response to a series of anticlerical measures raised to constitutional status by the Lerdo government. These "Laws of Reform" decreed the full independence of Church and state, secularized marriage and burial practices, prohibited acts of public worship, and severely curtailed the Church's ability to own and administer property. A comprehensive reconstruction of the revolt and a critical reappraisal of its significance, this book places ordinary Catholics at the center of the story of Mexico's fragmented nineteenth-century secularization and Catholi

In Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier (W. W. Norton, 2020), Benjamin E. Park, an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University, examines a neglected part of the Mormon past -- the establishment of a thriving Latter-day Saint metropolis in Illinois. In Nauvoo, Park argues, the Mormons, under the leadership of Joseph Smith, wanted to build their kingdom along the Mississippi. In covering the Saints' time in Illinois, Park analyzes how the Mormon experience in Nauvoo not only transformed some of the religion's core religious beliefs but he also explores Smith's and the Saints' engagement and disillusionment with American democracy. Doing so allows Park to situate Mormons at the center of antebellum religious and political developments. Chris Babits is an Andrew W. Mellon Engaged Scholar Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. He researches the intersecting histories of medicine, religion, and gender and sexuality and is currently

So what is Western Civilization, anyway? The term itself is under assault from progressives, as if the very notion is somehow passé and is not inclusive enough in a globalized world. But, the fact is, our daily lives in the U.S and throughout much of the world are governed by core values and concepts that grow out of two inextricably linked aspects of the human condition: faith and reason. You don’t have to be a religious person to benefit from gaining an understanding of how the pairing of reason and faith is one of the hallmarks of Western Civilization and is unique to it. In his illuminating 2019 work of intellectual history, Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization (Gateway, 2019), Samuel Gregg demonstrates that key features of what we call the West--from the market economy to scientific advancement and the quest for human freedom and justice--are rooted in the relationship between faith and reason. He shows, for example, that the Enlightenment has been misleadingly portrayed as almost who

Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like rabbits or hats. Paradox works in the abstract, with words and concepts and symbols, to create the illusion of contradiction. There are no contradictions in reality, but there can appear to be. In Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy (MIT Press, 2020), Matt Cook and a few collaborators dive deeply into more than 75 paradoxes in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and the social sciences. As each paradox is discussed and resolved, Cook helps readers discover the meaning of knowledge and the proper formation of concepts―and how reason can dispel the illusion of contradiction. The journey begins with “a most ingenious paradox” from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance. Readers will then travel from Ancient Greece to cutting-edge laboratories, encounter infinity and its diffe

The Gospel of John presents many challenges for interpreters—how best should this book be read? How are we to understand issues like its unity or its critical stance to the characters known as ‘the Jews’? Christopher M. Blumhofer suggests the Gospel of John ought to be read as a narrative argument about how Israel might embrace its future. Tune in as we speak with Chris Blumhofer about his recent book, The Gospel of John and the Future of Israel (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Christopher M. Blumhofer is Visiting Assistant Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. In addition to his monograph on the Gospel of John, he has published with New Testament Studies, Review of Biblical Literature, and has a forthcoming contribution co-authored with Richard B. Hays on the Canonical Matrix of the Gospels. At Fuller seminary, he teaches introductory, interpretive, exegesis courses in New Testament. Michael Morales is Professor of Biblical Studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and

In his new book On Trial for Reason: Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo Affair (Oxford University Press, 2019), Maurice Finocchiaro shows that there were (and are) really two Galileo “affairs.” Galileo’s original trial and condemnation forms the first affair, the cultural history of controversies about the meaning of the original trial, forms the second. With scrupulous attention to evidence and the argumentation employed by various participants, Dr. Finocchiaro’s book is at once an accessible primer on a key event in the 16th- and 17th-century Scientific Revolution, and a thought provoking look at how the subsequent controversies resonate down to the present day. Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western, in Dillon, MT. He teaches courses on Russian and Soviet History, World History, and Philosophy of History. His research interests include the sociological theorist Philip Rieff and the influence of Russian nihilism on American libertarianism. Learn more about you

The Crusader World (Routledge, 2015), edited by Adrian J. Boas, is a multidisciplinary survey of the current state of research in the field of crusader studies, an area of study which has become increasingly popular in recent years. In this volume Adrian Boas draws together an impressive range of academics, including work from renowned scholars as well as a number of though-provoking pieces from emerging researchers, in order to provide broad coverage of the major aspects of the period. This authoritative work will play an important role in the future direction of crusading studies. This volume enriches present knowledge of the crusades, addressing such wide-ranging subjects as: intelligence and espionage, gender issues, religious celebrations in crusader Jerusalem, political struggles in crusader Antioch, the archaeological study of battle sites and fortifications, diseases suffered by the crusaders, crusading in northern Europe and Spain and the impact of Crusader art. The relationship between Crusaders and

Without question the Gospel of John makes rich use of both the Jewish scriptures and the feasts of the Jewish liturgical year. In this double-feature program, with speak with Michael A. Daise about his two monographs on the Gospel of John. In his book Quotations in John: Studies on Jewish Scripture in the Fourth Gospel (T&T Clark, 2020), Daise examines three quotations from Isaiah along with three ‘remembrance’ quotations that together form an inclusio within the Book of Signs. In an earlier monograph, Feasts in John (Mohr Siebeck, 2007), he suggests that originally the feasts were sequenced into a single liturgical year, marking the imminent coming of Jesus’ ‘hour.’ Join us as we take a deeper look at the fascinating Gospel of John with Michael Daise. Michael A. Daise is Walter G. Mason Professor of Religious Studies at the College of William and Mary, USA, where he teaches courses in early Judaism, the origins of Christianity and the New Testament for both the Department of Religious Studies and the Program

In Mind, Heart, and Soul: Intellectuals and the Path to Rome (TAN Books, 2018), a cradle Catholic (Robert P. George; McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University) and an adult convert (R. J. Snell; Director of Academic Programs at the Witherspoon Institute, Princeton University), offer the stories of sixteen Catholic converts, each an intellectual or leading voice in their respective fields. While some of these academics, intellectuals, or cultural commentators are well-known, their stories may not be. Here they speak for themselves, providing the reasons for belief that prompted these accomplished men and women to embrace the ancient faith. Included are interviews with a bishop, a leading theologian and priest, a member of the International Theological Commission, a former megachurch pastor, a prominent pro-life scholar, professors from Harvard and other universities, as well as journalists and writers, novelists and

How did Catholic mysticism shape politics and religion in 20th-century Germany? What do seers, stigmatics, and Marian apparitions reveal about broader cultural trends? Michael O’Sullivan’s award winning new book examines how longing for the divine paradoxically drove secularism. In Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918-1965 (University of Toronto Press, 2018), O’Sullivan shares the stories of women who found agency in religious institutions as conduits of the miraculous amid political chaos. In a fascinating examination of politics and religious authority, Disruptive Power shows how miracles sustained religiosity, while ultimately speeding the collapse of church authority. Michael O'Sullivan teaches a broad range of courses on European history at Marist College in New York. He earned his BA from Canisius College, and his MA and PhD from the University of North Carolina. Ryan Stackhouse is a historian of Europe specializing in modern Germany and political policing und

What does an American political progressive in the 21st Century have in common with a pagan of ancient Rome? More than you may think, according to law professor, Steven D. Smith. In his important, provocative new book, Pagans and Christians in the City Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Eerdmans, 2018), Smith shows that traditionalist Christians who oppose same-sex marriage and similar cultural developments feel themselves besieged by a triumphalist progressivism that increasingly is adopting a “we won, they lost” view of where society and public opinion now stand on issues such as abortion and euthanasia and that has little use for what it regards as passé notions about religious liberty. Where do we stand when it comes to working out some kind of sociocultural modus vivendi between the diametrically opposed camps of modern paganism and Christianity (and not even, in many cases, the traditionalist version)? Smith provides us with the historical background we need to understand where everyone involve

Christian imagery, symbols, and motifs have long been used and incorporated in fashion. Famous designers such as Coco Chanel, Gianni Versace, and Dolce and Gabbana have made Christianity trendy and fashionable. But there is a history that precedes the seemingly recent fusion of Christianity and fashion. Lynn Neal traces this history in Religion in Vogue: Christianity and Fashion in America (NYU Press, 2019). Through an analysis of fashion magazines and the designs of prominent fashion designers, Neal examines the history of Christianity and fashion starting in the mid-twentieth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. Neal convincingly demonstrates that the history of Christianity and fashion provides an avenue through which to study Christianity in the United States more broadly. Lynn Neal is Professor of Religious Studies at Wake Forest University. Lindsey Jackson is a PhD student at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olivier Roy, who is professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, is one of the most influential analysts of religion and secularisation in late modernity. Today he joins us to talk about his new book, Is Europe Christian?, which was published by Hurst in 2019 and Oxford University Press in 2020. Roy wrote the book to intervene in contemporary debates among European populists who lay claim to the Christian heritage of Europe without often embracing its values. This important new book is some ways a meditation on the success of the countercultural values of the 1960s, which have become so embedded in the legal and political cultures of late modernity as to be virtually unassailable, even by conservative forces that campaign against them. What does the success of 1960s values mean for the reiteration of religious identities? And how have the European churches responded to the appropriation of their heritage by political forces who may not adop