WHY MONKS MATTER
I have recently been posting about the end of the church in Roman Britain, mainly as a case study in how churches die. Just to recap, the old church disintegrated after 450 or so, at least in the south...
View ArticleChristians in Babylon
In the early Christian era, Mesopotamia/Iraq was a thriving center of rabbinic Judaism, and throughout the first millennium it was the intellectual capital of that faith. Given the Jewish background,...
View ArticleTwo Sides of One Coin? (Buddhist and Christian Decline, Part III)
I have been comparing the decline of two once mighty religious systems, namely Buddhism in India, and Christianity in the Middle East. By the late Middle Ages, both were damaged irreparably, and had...
View Article#fav7films on Faith
Our social media followers helped compile a list of seven favorite films about faith, religion, and belief.
View Article“What do Eastern Orthodox Christians believe about…?”
As evangelicals pay more attention to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, guest blogger Matt Miller reviews a significant new collection of primary sources from that ancient tradition.
View Article7 Women Who Shaped Christianity and Western Culture
We’re gearing up to start another academic year at Bethel University, where one of my favorite courses is a first-year general education offering called Christianity and Western Culture, or CWC. A...
View ArticleInventing Clerical Celibacy
I have been writing about the early Christian church around 200 AD, and how surprisingly “Catholic” it already looked in terms of its attitudes towards clergy and priesthood. Even the idea of clerical...
View ArticleMaking Monks, Forming Souls
I have been reading an important new book called Monasteries and the Care of Souls in Late Antique Christianity: Cognition and Discipline (Cambridge University Press, 2017). This is by my former...
View ArticleThe Last Days of Charles Lindbergh
On the 45th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's death, Chris considers what the pilot's last days reveal about his "spiritual, but not religious" beliefs.
View ArticleWhy I Bake Bread in the Middle of a Crisis
Like many others during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chris has found himself baking bread — and thinking about the historical and religious meanings of that activity.
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