The Anxious Bench

@anxious_bench

@Patheos group blog featuring faith, politics, & culture in view of American & global religious history.

Joined June 2016

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 28, 2016

Welcome to The Anxious Bench, feat. reflections on faith, politics, and culture by Christian historians. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb… @Patheos

anxious_bench's tweet card. At Patheos Evangelical, Christian historians share their reflections on contemporary faith, politics, and culture. Authors include Beth Allison Barr, Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Chris Gehrz, Tim Gloege,...

The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jul 23

In the 21st century, John MacArthur earned notoriety for taking on what he saw as threats to true Christianity. But he gained fame and a faithful following in the 80s and 90s for his approach to preaching. Daniel K. Williams writes about that approach. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. 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

The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jul 22

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. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. 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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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jul 18

The Scopes trial turns 100 this month. Kelsey Hanson Woodruff writes about the legacy of the Scopes trial in Dayton, TN, and how one resident, Rachel Held Evans, tried to push evangelicalism beyond Young Earth creationism's culture war battle lines. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. For Rachel Held Evans, living in Dayton, Ohio--of Scopes Trial fame--was a way to combat the legacy of fundamentalism in evangelicalism.

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jul 11

Verónica Gutiérrez is contending with two recurring themes in Anxious Bench pieces--the ethic of archival silences and the challenge of doing historical fiction--by writing a novel about María de la Paz. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. Lynneth Miller Renberg’s discussion of archival silences and archival shouting in Listening to Archival Silence: History and Hidden Voices last month

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jul 9

Michael Jimenez is always on the lookout for good historical fiction. Here, he offers two models of good fiction that make history—and religious characters—come alive. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. Last month's post I briefly discussed the topic of summer reading. Before that post, I also wrote about how I plan on using historical fiction to craft a Vanessa Chan and Min Jin Lee present ways to...

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jul 8

Why are there so many cats on the island of Cyprus? Lynneth Miller Renberg writes that the gaps between historical record and local legend can reveal much about how we tell stories--as well as what we just don't know. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. On a recent trip to Turkey and Greece, where I loved the churches, mosques, and museums we were able to tour, my daughter had a very different highlight

The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 26

Have you heard about the American Protective Association of the 1890s? Philip Jenkins calls our attention to right-leaning grassroots movements in American history, and our need to study the movements we don't like. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. Religious tension, economic collapse, and conspiracy fears gripped 1890s America—echoes of today’s struggles in a forgotten but pivotal era.

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 24

The Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade turns three years old today. Dan Williams, on the legacy of Dobbs, says it's not simply a decision about abortion. It's a fight to define the nation's founding principles. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. The Dobbs decision is not simply a decision about abortion. It's a fight to define the nation's founding principles.

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 23

President Trump has invoked religious language to sanctify his military actions against Iran. It's the latest of many examples of what Joey Cochran calls "God-gilded realpolitik." Here, he offers some reflections on how to respond. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. Apparently, the 12-day War is ending, all thanks to Trump's God-gilded realpolitik. What do I mean by this? Allow me to show you by recounting recent

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 20

Southern Baptist leaders want to "keep the main thing the main thing." But what if your very culture gets in the way of the "main thing"? patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. Southern Baptist leaders want to "keep the main thing the main thing." But what if your very culture gets in the way of the "main thing"?

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 19

Continuing his series on 1893, Philip Jenkins explores the explosion of New Thought spirituality and religious movements touting the absolute power of the mind at the turn of the 20th century. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 18

In 1900, faith healer and entrepreneur John Alexander Dowie founded Zion, Illinois, a city that could harness technology for the kingdom of God. Alex Mayfield writes about Dowie's bold vision and its surprising relevance to our cultural moment. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. “All hail to the Printing Press and all its beautiful adjuncts, and all hail to the coming Grapho-Tele-Phone and Photo-Telegraph, the Speech-Recorder and

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 17

How did early Christians address grave sin in their communities? Adam Renberg gives us a look into early church discipline, including what from their approach we can apply in our own contexts. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. Moral failings in the church are not a new phenomenon—to read the pages of Christian history is to see sin’s stain throughout. The writings of the New

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 10

Evangelicals are typically allergic to any class-based social analysis because it sniffs of Marxism. But if they want to understand constructs of race in America, writes Paul Thompson, they need to stop living in fear of ideas. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. Recently I was discussing Critical Race Theory with a professor colleague of mine who in every sense of the word is more conservative than me. When

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · Jun 3

Are we seeing a rise in Christian nationalism among Black Protestants? Ansley Quiros probes the complex and sometimes contradictory polling data for answers. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. If you follow data and polling around religion and American politics, you’ve probably (whether knowingly or unknowingly) utilized the work of the Public

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · May 27

Joseph Smith--religious revisionist, charismatic genius, and voice of American audacity. Daniel Williams reviews John Turner's biography of the Mormon patriarch, "Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet (Yale, 2025). patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. John Turner’s new book explores whether Joseph Smith was divinely inspired—or one of America’s most creative and daring religious minds.

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · May 24

Anticipating new fights in the SBC over women’s ministry, Jacob Randolph offers a look at the cultural assumptions that shaped early Christian ordination to ministry—and those that shape ours. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. It's almost Southern Baptist Convention season again and, as the argument over women's roles in the church is destined to come to the floor again this

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · May 23

The Scopes "Monkey" Trial typically takes center stage when we recall the fundamentalist/modernist conflicts. But according to Philip Jenkins, higher critics and traditionalists were already trading blows by the 1890s. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. I am currently writing about the year 1893, and arguing that it was of immense significance in American culture, and especially in religious matters. If

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · May 21

Our newest regular contributor, Alex Mayfield, tells the story of how Pentecostals warmed to Roman Catholicism over the last century--or at least some Pentecostals. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. The earliest Pentecostals certainly had no love for the papacy. Their periodicals were awash with anti-Catholic, and specifically anti-papal, sentiments.

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The Anxious Bench@anxious_bench · May 17

Verónica Gutiérrez on the history of the papal conclave, the grief of losing a beloved pope, and the joy in meeting a new one. patheos.com/blogs/anxiousb…

anxious_bench's tweet card. Tears, white smoke, and a U.S.-born Pope. One Catholic reflects on the emotion, history, and hope stirred by the election of Pope Leo XIV.

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