On the morning of March 23, 1982, a group of young Guatemalan army officers brought a retired army general, Efrain Rios Montt, to power in a coup d’etat. Rios Montt, an evangelical Protestant and member of the Word Church, was president of a Catholic country in Catholic Latin America. The . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1802 a flamboyant Baptist preacher named John Leland presented a twelve-hundred pound “mammoth cheese” to Thomas Jefferson at a White House ceremony. Molded in a cider press from the milk of nine hundred cows, this phenomenal creation bore the motto “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to . . . . Continue Reading »
This volume, containing sixteen essays (including the useful introduction by editor Norman Cohen), constitutes a valuable reference source on American Protestant and other forms of religious “fundamentalism.” There is a little something here for everyone. The essays, for one thing, range from . . . . Continue Reading »
Fifteen years ordained and still serving in the parish. Still switching on the coffee at dawn Sunday mornings, still putting out the chairs for midweek Bible study, still riding with the youth group on ski trips. Still visiting at the hospital, still living with difficult people on the Vestry, still . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1948, a young American minister from the conservative Bible Presbyterian Church moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, to serve as a missionary to Europe. Intending lo work primarily as an evangelist, this earnest pastor was relatively sequestered from the contentious and obscurantist tendencies of . . . . Continue Reading »
Our subject is one of those peculiar phenomena taken for granted in the contemporary world but which from an historical perspective seem anomalous. The phenomenon is that the huge numbers of Protestants in the United States support almost no distinctively Christian program in higher education other . . . . Continue Reading »
Authority is an issue that occupies a central place in current ecumenical discussion among the churches and it is one of enormous social and political importance as well. Accordingly, while the arguments that follow are directed most particularly to the question of authority in the churches, they . . . . Continue Reading »
Richard John Neuhaus: 1992 is scheduled to he a very big year for moving toward European unity. Specifics will be changed as a result of the Revolution of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe, and especially in light of German reunification, but the continuing move toward European unity seems to be . . . . Continue Reading »
Awash in a Sea of Faith: Christianizing the American People by jon butler harvard university press, 360 pages, $29.50 Jon Butler’s Awash in a Sea of Faith is the most ambitious and successful effort to date to link the social or behavioral history of American religion with that of medieval . . . . Continue Reading »
Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subcultureby randall balmeroxford university press, 246 pages, $19.95 While familiarity and education both breed contempt for things like traditional religion, they also, especially in combination, can spawn interesting insights into . . . . Continue Reading »