Randall Stephens The latest issue of National Geographic arrived in my mailbox yesterday. And, behold, it doth have this story on “The Polygamists: A sect that split from the Mormons allows multiple wives, expels ‘lost boys,’ and heeds a jailed prophet.” It’s a well-written, thoughtful piece
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FLDS Cover Story in February National Geographic
From Spencer Fluhman, on behalf of the Mormon History Association: MORMON HISTORY ASSOCIATION STUDENT AWARDS The Mormon History Association (MHA) is pleased to announce two award competitions for exceptional student work exploring the history of those religious traditions originating with Joseph Smith, Jr. The Juanita Brooks Undergraduate and Graduate Paper Awards will be given to the best unpublished papers written in 2009 by an undergraduate and graduate student, respectively. Students are eligible to submit one paper for consideration
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Mormon History Association Awards
Art Remillard Despite the request , I have nothing interesting to say about the Leo Frank lynching. Kelly Baker’s insights ( here and here ) are far more interesting than mine–trust me.
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A Surprisingly Unsurprising Look at Southern Jewish Life in the Age of Leo Frank
Randall Stephens John Cotton was one of the most ambitious and bedeviled Puritan ministers of late-17th century New England. He was pastor of the Wethersfield, Conn., church in his early twenties. He lost the pulpit as the result of a sex scandal and subsequently worked as an Indian missionary on Martha’s Vineyard
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Misunderstood Puritans, John Cotton, and Scandal in 17th-Century New England: An Interview with Sheila McIntyre and Len Travers
by Phillip Luke Sinitiere Last fall, Paul offered an insightful post (and others chimed in with equally thoughtful comments) on the ways that religion intersected with the first episode of Ken Burns’ latest documentary on national parks . For those who missed it the first time around (like me), or for those without an extra $100 to purchase the series (like me), the series begins (re)airing tonight. Did anyone incorporate the first episode into religion or history classes last fall?
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The Scripture of Nature, Part 2
Paul Harvey At the 2010 American Historical Association, my co-editor Randall Stephens organized a session “American Religious Historians Online,” featuring presentations by the likes of Randall himself, Kathryn Lofton (Yale), Gary Laderman (Emory, and editor of Religion Dispatches ), Rebecca Goetz (who started blogging at Historianess back in the Stone Ages), and myself. I was not present at the session itself, but Randall read my presentation for me
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Blogging and the (Non-) Democratization of American Religious History
Back in November, the Council of Bishops of the United Methodist Church published a document called “God’s Renewed Creation: A Call to Hope and Action.” It was essentially an update of an earlier document, a theological statement about environmental concerns but also addressing poverty and proliferation of weapons and violence.
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The Bishop vs the IRD
Paul Harvey As many of you know, Columbia University Press has an excellent series of books on religious denominations/traditions in America — the Columbia Contemporary Traditions in America series .
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Islam in America: An Interview with Jane Smith
Seth Dowland ABC News reported this week that military contractor Trijicon , recently awarded a $660 million contract to provide rifle sights to the Marine Corps, has been placing “secret Bible codes” at the end of the serial numbers on its rifle sights. The serial numbers end with references to Bible passages such as JN8:12 (John 8:12) or 2COR4:6 (2 Corinthians 4:6). Apparently Trijicon has been placing Bible references on its rifle sights for years, though the U.S.
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Secret Bible Codes on the “Spiritually Transformed Firearms of Jesus Christ”
Call for Papers Millennialism and Providentialism in the Era of the American Civil War October 1-2, 2010 Rice University Houston , Texas The Department of History at Rice University invites proposals for a special conference focusing on millennialism and providentialism in the era of the American Civil War and Reconstruction to be held on the campus of Rice University in Houston , Texas on October 1-2, 2010. An opening address will be given by Robert Abzug of the University of Texas at Austin on the theme of antebellum millennialism and providentialism in the coming of the American Civil War. Edward J.
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Millennialism and Providentialism in the Era of the American Civil War — CFP
Paul Harvey One report and two upcoming seminars/opportunities at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at IUPUI for you to be aware of.
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Seminars, Young Scholars, and Conference Proceedings at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture
According to Peter Marshall, God decided to take out New Orleans with Katrina (because of, umm, something about gay people living in the French Quarter ; or something; but actually the French Quarter escaped Katrina almost entirely unscathed, so I guess God’s aim isn’t so good); now, according to Pat Robertson, He has decided to go after Haiti. Who’s next? If we’re lucky, this line of Providential interpretation will find its way into the Texas state history textbooks (and more on that here )
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The Devil, the Earthquake, Pat Robertson, and Some More Assholes
L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, joined most critics in praising the film’s 3-D technology but sniffing at its story. “So much stupefying, enchanting technology, but few genuine emotions.” But the big problem the Vatican has with the film is it “gets bogged down by a spiritualism linked to the worship of nature.”
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Vatican on ‘Avatar’: Dazzling, Bland, Doctrinally Dicey
Paul Harvey Over at Juvenile Instructor, Jonathan Stapley has some interesting thoughts and important critiques on ritual healing among early American Baptists as covered in Janet Lindman’s Bodies of Belief: Baptist Community in Early America , a book John Fea previously reviewed for us on this blog . As a researcher in early Mormon healing rituals, Stapley pays most attention to the coverage of healing rituals in Lindman’s work, and finds some issues with some of the details provided there.
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Bodies of Belief and Christian Nationists Revisited
There was a lot of controversy about President George W. Bush’s attempt to expand federal grants to faith-based organizations involved in social services work. Now comes a new study by Duke Divinity School professor of sociology Mark Chaves which says the initiative had no impact whatsoever on persuading churches to expand their social-services ministries.
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Did Bush’s Faith-based Initiative Expand Church Social Services? Nope.
When all is said and done — in a few years’ time — The Episcopal Church could find itself out of the international Anglican Communion and the Anglican Church in North America would be in. That would have more symbolic significance than practical, but it would be galling, no doubt, to The Episcopal Church.
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Church of England Ponders Embracing Episcopal Church’s Rival
Randall Stephens [Cross posted at the THS blog .] I liked it when the AHA met in NYC last year. Better yet, this year it’s in sunny San Diego, a nice break from the cold, snow, slush, and raging swine flu of New England. (And I forgot to bring my wetsuit.) I spent part of Thursday reconnoitering the area and meeting with various friends in the profession
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Know Your Editor: Susan Ferber, Executive Editor, American and World History, Oxford University Press
Paul Harvey Good stuff over at Immanent Frame: First, a little follow-up on Darren’s post from yesterday: ” Christianity and the Crash,” collects a number of scholarly responses to Hanna Rosin’s article ” Did Christianity Cause the Crash ,” from the December 2009 Atlantic . Our friends Anthea Butler and Jon Walton weigh in, along with Mark Taylor, Harvey Cox, and several others
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Christianity, Crashes, and Special Experiences
Darren Grem Jim Wallis has a new book coming out soon on what he sees as the religious underpinnings and implications of the recent–and continuing–recession. As what I suppose is a boilerplate for that book, Wallis recently wrote this column for the Washington Post , offering a “religious response to the financial crisis.” A selection: Clearly, the financial crisis is a structural meltdown that calls for increased government regulation of banks and other financial players
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Responding Religiously to the Great Recession
Paul Harvey The holiday season; no better time to catch up on piled-up volumes of journals (if only to scan and put them back on the pile to read later, like next year at this time). But I did belatedly get to this piece, which I recommend to all for a concise state of the art article: Rebecca Goetz, “Rethinking the ‘Unthinking Decision’: Old Questions and New Problems in the History of Slavery and Race in the Colonial South,” Journal of Southern History LXXV (August 2009): 599-612. The bulk of the piece covers recent scholarship in the colonial-era South, concluding that “slavery became entrenched much earlier than we have previously supposed,” and that “even inchoate ideas of race — racial idiom–seemingly emerged earlier than we have thought and apparently did not require either institutionalized slavery or the Enlightenment to attain their full articulation.” A brief part at the end explores the interaction of religion with slavery and race in the early South, and Goetz’s ideas here shed fresh light on the question: Using religion as a category of analysis in the construction of race and slavery could have interesting implications for both aspects of the origins debate.
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Religion and Rethinking the "Unthinking Decision"
Paul Harvey Just following up on some of previously posted-about topics. First, ” Dissertations on His Dudeness, ” NY Times , December 30, has more on religion/philosophy, cult movies, and The Big Lebowski , which we had posted about here previously. Secondly, over at Immanent Frame is more on “Religion and the Historical Profession,” including several scholars weighing in on an uptick of interest in religion in the historical profession, as discussed in a recent AHA study and reported on by Inside Higher Ed; we blogged about it previously here (with links to all of the above)
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Dissertations on Dudeness, the Historical Profession, and Francis Asbury
Historian/Documentary Editor, Joseph Smith Papers Project-0900581 Application Process http://www.lds.org/emp/new/home.html Description The Joseph Smith Papers Project is engaged in producing a comprehensive edition of Joseph Smith documents featuring complete and accurate transcripts with both textual and contextual annotation. The scope of the project includes Joseph Smith’s original correspondence, revelations, journals, historical writings, sermons, legal papers, and other documents. Besides providing the most comprehensive record of early Latter-day Saint history they will also provide insight into the broader religious landscape of the early American republic
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Joseph Smith Papers Project — Job Announcement
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, titular head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, sent out to its 38 international provinces on Friday the final version of a “covenant,” an agreement on some broad structural principles. The American Episcopal Church and possibly the Canadian Anglican Church are unlikely to go along with the terms of the covenant, and that will probably relegate them to a second-tier membership in the communion.
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Anglican Covenant Probably DOA in USA
Paul Harvey This piece is getting a lot of attention at various academic blog sites: “Religious Revival,” Inside Higher Ed, December 21 . It reports on an American Historical Association survey that Randall blogged about here before, which shows that religion is the “box” now most often checked by historians reporting on their specialities/interests, with a disproportionate number of younger historians reporting on religion as a field of interest/inquiry/research
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Everywhere and Nowhere: Religious History and Historiography
Paul Harvey Cathleen Falsani’s The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers , featured yesterday on NPR , takes up the question of the moral order to the movies of the Coen Brothers — The Big Lebowski, Fargo, O Brother Where Art Thou, Barton Fink , and most recently A Serious Man . A little excerpt from the interview: The hero of The Big Lebowski is portrayed by Jeff Bridges as a meditative — or perhaps stoned? — fellow with long hair and a beard.
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The Dude Abides — Or Is He Just Stoned?
Paul Harvey Over at Civil War Memory, Kevin Levin has an excellent post where, as usual on his blog, he whacks down some more persistent neo-Confederate mythology, this time concerning how Stonewall Jackson’s Sunday Schools made the General a great friend of the black man. Levin uses our friend Charles Irons’s The Origins of Proslavery Christianity to set this particular mission to the slaves in proper context: Earlier I referenced Nat Turner and I did so because it is crucial to understanding this story. Charles Irons does a magnificent job of analyzing the degree of cooperation between white and black evangelicals in Virginia through the early 1830s.
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Stonewall Jackson and the Catholic Fathers
Paul Harvey Just in time for your holiday shopping season, my blog co-editor has put together a terrific series of conversations, essays, and responses on American religious history into a tidy volume: Recent Themes in American Religious History: Historians in Conversation . A brief description from the book’s Amazon page: Described as “the New York Review of Books for history,” Historically Speaking has emerged as one of the most distinctive historical publications in recent years, actively seeking out contributions from a pantheon of leading voices in historical discourse from both inside and outside academia.
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Recent Themes in American Religious History