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The Anxious Bench
@anxiousbench.bsky.social
380 followers 14 following 100 posts
Group blog featuring faith, politics, and culture in view of American and global religious history.
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Today at the Anxious Bench, Lynneth Miller Renberg helps us enter into the sacred space of Trondenes Kirke, the northernmost surviving medieval church.
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Trondenes Kirke: The Northernmost Medieval Church
It’s a stunning stone church, painted white and towering over the surrounding landscape, with the sparkling waters of the fjord and snow-covered peaks of
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November 6, 2025 at 9:02 PM
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What is happening in Chicago? Historian Joey Cochran documents some of the recent protests and talks about how Chicagoans have responded to Operation Midway Blitz.

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Everyday Evangelical Resistance For My Chicago Neighbors
Historians talk about the danger of presentist history. They rarely talk about what happens when presentist history is unavoidable.
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October 31, 2025 at 5:19 PM
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What is going on in right-wing America? Historian Paul Yandle traces the similarities between dehumanizing Reconstruction-era rhetoric and the fear mongers of the new Right.
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"Nations Are Made By Men, Not Paper Constitutions"
For over ten years my colleague and friend Paul Yandle and I have been comparing southern history and contemporary politics. Unlike me, he is a
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October 15, 2025 at 7:21 PM
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How should pastors think about the rising threat of Christian nationalism? Ansley Quiros offers her reflections in response to the recent conference, "Pastoral Leadership in a Time of Christian Nationalism," held at Candler School of Theology last week.
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"Pastoral Leadership In A Time Of Christian Nationalism"
We hear much about Christian nationalism these days, and for good reason. Pastors, pundits, and presidents alike champion control and dominance as
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October 8, 2025 at 3:35 PM
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If you've seen the film SINNERS, you know how the stories of American history are woven into the the fabric of fantasy. But what about stories of Christianity? Today, Rev. Kevin Barron considers the relationship between faith and fantasy in SINNERS.
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Biblical And Christian Images In The Movie SINNERS
We have a guest blog today from my good friend Kevin Barron – more properly, the Rev. Kevin Barron, as he is an Episcopal priest. Like many of us, he has
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October 6, 2025 at 4:44 PM
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"The Charlie Kirk Memorial turned out to be a blend of funeral, revival, and rally," writes Joey Cochran. "The three features of which had so much permeability that it was tough to discern where one began and the others ended."
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The Charlie Kirk Memorial: A Funeral, A Revival, A Rally
On Sunday, September 21, 2025, thousands of people attended the Charlie Kirk Memorial at State Farm Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona. They gathered to pay
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September 22, 2025 at 9:15 PM
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"I'm only human!" It seems natural to us to root our shortcomings in human frailty.

But for Origen of Alexandria, our moral faults reflect more of an animalistic rejection of human nature as created by God and perfectly displayed in Jesus Christ.
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I’m Only Human: Sin As The Rejection Of Human Nature
How should we think about our flaws and misbehavior? For some, flaws are something to be embraced: we should be loved ‘warts and all’. For others,
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September 17, 2025 at 4:12 PM
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"Why does it often take terrible spectacles of violence to get people to finally sit down and talk?"
Michael Jimenez writes on what we can learn from the interfaith embrace of Cesar Chavez's farmworkers' union in the 1970s.
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An Ecumenical Moment: Cesar Chavez & The 3 Faiths
"All Jews, Christians and Moslems, the spiritual heirs of those slaves freed from Egyptian bondage, are bound by that law, whether they live in the Middle
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September 11, 2025 at 2:36 PM
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Today at The Anxious Bench, Philip Jenkins reveals how a 19th century fringe group of religious freethinkers, the Theosophists, were pioneers in the "rediscovery" of early Christianity's esoteric egalitarianism.
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Feminists, Lost Gospels, And A Lost History Of Christianity
My current series of posts concerns what I call the first discovery of lost gospels and scriptures, which became a major force in both scholarship and
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September 5, 2025 at 6:12 PM
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What do board games have to do with the doctrine of creation? Lynneth Miller Renberg explores the visual theology of a medieval Scandinavian church, and tells us why theologians and historians need each other to understand the worlds of religion.
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Theology, History, And Contexts For Reading Well
Stepping under the 13th-century painted ceiling from the chancel of the church in Ål housed in Oslo’s Historical Museum is a breathtaking experience for a I’d argue that anyone wanting to be a thought...
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September 3, 2025 at 4:08 PM
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James Dobson's death marks the end of a generation of conservative evangelical influencers. Daniel Williams writes that what propelled Dobson was a potent blend of Silent Generation political persuasion and Sunbelt evangelical ingenuity.
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James Dobson's Death Was The End Of An Era
James Dobson's death last week marked the end of a particular era in conservative evangelical politics. It was certainly not the end of the Christian
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August 27, 2025 at 4:16 PM
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When John Mark Comer posted a pic in praise of Andrew Rillera’s new book on atonement, it triggered a flurry of responses from Reformed evangelical social media.
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John Mark Comer, Penal Substitution, And Evangelical Power
Evangelical leaders clash over John Mark Comer’s views on penal-substitutionary atonement. Explore the debate on crucicentrism, atonement theory, and shifting centers of evangelical influence.
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August 26, 2025 at 6:29 PM
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What do the Cracker Barrel rebrand and the conversion of a prominent Southern Baptist theologian have to do with one another? www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiou...
Cracker Barrel, Anglican Converts, And Tradition's Aesthetic
What does Cracker Barrel's branding woes tell us about the relationship between tradition and modernity in Christianity?
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August 25, 2025 at 3:31 AM
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In 1896 and 1897, several breakthrough discoveries in Egypt changed the landscape of biblical studies and scholarly speculation about the figure of Jesus. Philip Jenkins continues his work on the "Lost Scriptures" of the late 19th century.
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Rediscovering Lost Scriptures: Two Astonishing Years
I have been writing about the modern rediscovery of ancient Jewish and Christian scriptures, including Lost Gospels. We usually tend to think of such
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August 22, 2025 at 2:12 PM
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At the turn of the twentieth century, Alexander Dowie foresaw an apocalyptic revolution and worldwide theocracy, where Jesus Christ would personally speak his message via--what else?--the nascent power of telecommunications.
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Zion: Televangelists And Worldwide Theocracy
They had removed two of the three bullets from his body, but Senior Sergeant Sauer was now refusing further treatment. “Do not touch me,” he said, “I
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August 21, 2025 at 2:27 PM
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Who reads scripture better--an unbelieving scholar of ancient texts or an aged saint, dedicated to years of devotional reading? Adam Renberg looks at ancient Christian reading practices that point to the necessity of virtue for understanding the Bible.
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Is Faith Required For Reading The Bible Properly?
Who reads the Scriptures better—Bart Ehrman or my grandmother? One is a world-renowned scholar of the New Testament and textual critic, the other has no
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August 20, 2025 at 1:42 PM
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When thinking about noncanonical scriptures, we typically start with the discoveries at Qumran in the 1940s, but alternative texts had been known from as early as the 1890s. How did these texts shape biblical studies and religious piety?
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The First Discovery Of The Lost Scriptures
Some years back, I published a lot at this site on the general subject of Alternative Scriptures, and their rediscovery in modern times. I found a lot to
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August 15, 2025 at 3:24 PM
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What do Christians have to offer the world in the "ahistoric age" in which we live?

We have a story to tell, Michael Jimenez writes--an old, beautiful, complex, surprising story.
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Surprised By History: Telling The Story
I love to tell the story; 'tis pleasant to repeat what seems, each time I tell it more wonderfully sweet.   As Dr. Daniel Williams points out in a
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August 14, 2025 at 3:35 PM
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Today at The Anxious Bench, Paul Thompson interviews fellow Anxious Bench contributor Daniel K. Williams on being a professional historian and the relationship between faith and scholarship.
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Interview With Historian Daniel K. Williams
In June 2010 I was privileged to meet Dr. Daniel Williams through a mutual acquaintance at the Policy History Conference in Columbus, Ohio. His first book
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August 12, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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Les Misérables is a story about failed revolution. It can be pretty bleak at times. But, Lisa Clark Diller writes, the musical also reminds us that human flourishing demands not only political vigilance, but self-giving love.
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Les Misérables And Failed Revolutions
Thirty years ago a friend introduced my husband Tommy and I to the music of Les Mis. It took us a few months to see the show—a fancy dress outing to the
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August 9, 2025 at 1:45 PM
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Why were the early 1890s so consequential for future American activity in the areas of politics, race, and religion? Philip Jenkins offers some early reflections.
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1893: The Long Trajectories
In recent weeks, I have been writing extensively about the transformations that America experienced during the year of 1893. You won't be surprised to
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August 8, 2025 at 9:08 PM
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Church Historian, Miles Mullin, is the interim replacement of Leatherwood.

Interestingly, Mullin has authored the most read piece in @anxiousbench.bsky.social’s history: The Long History of the Religious Right.

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The Long History Of The Religious Right
Ever since so many of them embraced the Reagan Revolution during the 1980 election cycle, the political involvement of evangelicals has garnered the
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July 31, 2025 at 9:10 PM
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The Progressive Era saw an explosion in social awareness and activism on the questions of suffrage, temperance, and protections against sexual abuse. How did new emphases on biology and racial eugenics shift the religious approaches to these social crises?
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1893: Temperance, Trafficking, And The Defense Of The Race
I recently blogged about the radical feminist theories in religion that emerged during that critical year of 1893, the year of Matilda Joslyn Gage’s
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July 25, 2025 at 1:52 PM
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In the 21st century, John MacArthur earned notoriety for challenging what he saw as threats to true Christianity. But he gained fame and a faithful following in the '80s and '90s for his style of preaching. Daniel K. Williams writes about MacArthur's approach.
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John MacArthur's Expository Preaching
Much of the commentary about John MacArthur in the wake of his death last week has focused on the controversies about his views on gender and politics or
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July 23, 2025 at 4:32 PM
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Summer church camps have been a mainstay of white evangelical culture for over half a century now. Joey Cochran asks what the ubiquity of evangelical leisure culture suggests about how evangelicals perform status and privilege in America.
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Evangelical Church Camps And Privilege
Evangelical church camps found their ascendance in the twentieth century. The privilege of resort and camp life are portrayed in two cinematic depictions...
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July 22, 2025 at 4:22 PM