Christianity and Liberalism at 100 Years
In 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) preached a sermon entitled “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” at the First Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, New York.[1] In the decade prior to Fosdick’s sermon, Americans had suffered through the First World War, and American Protestants (particularly the Baptists and Presbyterians) were amid the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy. Fosdick’s “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” was a call for...
William Jennings Bryan and the Progressive Era
American history is filled with interesting cultural changes and transformations. While we focus rightly most of our attention on the founding era or the War Between the States, other time periods are also important for understanding how the United States came to be what it is today. One such time period is the years between 1880 and 1920, which historians usually refer to as the Progressive Era. This historical moment, which is often...
Recommended Books (Spring 2018)
The information revolution has cheapened words. We are awash in a sea of verbs and nouns hastily typed into digital existence. To avoid drowning under the crashing waves, we have learned to scan documents for keywords or, worse still, hashtags. Even in the world of print, we can find thousands of books in community libraries anywhere in the nation. Such a wealth of material was unimaginable to the vast majority of premodern men. But,...
Evangelical Cultural Engagement: Shifting Grammars
Sometimes we get a feeling in our gut that is more than indigestion. The source of my scholarly discontent has often been related to language. Specifically, I have been concerned with the ways in which some Christians speak about the believer’s role in the world. This question typically falls under the auspices of a field we might call “theology and culture.” It’s somewhat unhelpful to use this phrase as it is broad enough to include...
Recommended Books (Autumn 2016)
Francis Bacon wrote in his 1625 essay, “Of Studies,” that reading is a private delight which strengthens the mind and sharpens the personality. However, he remarked, there are various ways of reading and not all books deserve the same attention. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and...
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