New Books in Christian Studies

As someone who grew up watching All in the Family and Sanford and Son, I’ve long been familiar with Norman Lear and his work. What I didn’t know, as a young child sitting cross-legged in front of the TV set in the 1970s, was how prominent a political figure Lear was at the time. In his new book, The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left: Politics, Television, and Popular Culture in the 1970s and Beyond (Columbia University Press, 2019), Professor L. Benjamin Rolsky makes the case for understanding Lear as a key protagonist in the culture wars of the late 20th century. As a religious liberal, Lear was committed to engaging politics on explicitly moral grounds in defense of what he saw as the public interest. Other players in the culture wars—including television networks, Hollywood, the FCC, televangelists, and Ronald Reagan himself—had their own interpretations of what constituted the public interest. As a result, Rolsky’s interdisciplinary analysis concludes, prime-time television itself became a contested political space and the site of some of the definitive cultural clashes of our fractious times.Carrie Lane is a Professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton and author of A Company of One: Insecurity, Independence, and the New World of White-Collar Unemployment. Her research concerns the changing nature of work in the contemporary U.S. She is currently writing a book on the professional organizing industry. To contact her or to suggest a recent title, email clane@fullerton.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

John Calvin continues to be the focus of a huge amount of scholarly attention. An annual bibliography records the thousands of items that are published every year on this most seminal of early modern religious thinkers. But how should readers navigate this constantly expanding field? Today we catch up with John W. Tweeddale, academic dean and professor of theology at Reformation Bible College, FL, who is one of the editors (with Derek Thomas) of an important new volume, John Calvin: For a New Reformation (Crossway, 2019). This volume introduces principal themes in its subject’s life, thought and literary achievements – a volume that is set to become a handbook for many readers as they discover one of the greatest protestant theologians.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Why did early modern people change their religious affiliation? And how did they represent that change in writing? In this outstanding new book, Conversion Narratives in Early Modern England: Tales of Turning (Palgrave, 2018), Abigail Shinn, who teaches in the department of English and Comparative Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, opens up a broader range of conversion narratives than literary or historical scholars have previously discussed. By expanding the chronological and geographical range of her sources, and so expanding their religious affiliation of her authors and drawing into discussion larger numbers of women, she shows how the representation of conversion changed from the late sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, and how disparate narratives relating experiences of Protestant, Catholic and Islamic conversion nevertheless continued to show similar rhetorical characteristics.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

How should we understand humanitarian NGOs? In Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector (University of Chicago Press, 2020), Shai M. Dromi, a lecturer in sociology at Harvard University, uses insights from cultural sociology to reframe the history of the Red Cross. The book blends a detailed historical analysis with field theory and the strong programme in cultural sociology to show the longstanding influence of key individuals and texts, as well as accounting for influences of nationalism and Christianity. The historical analysis of the Red Cross presents crucial lessons for our current context, as well as providing the basis for comparisons with other approaches to humanitarian interventions. The book is both an excellent example of the strengths of the strong programme, along with a fascinating analysis of a key element of our modern world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In the United States, the number of megachurches increased from 350 in 1990 to over 1,600 in 2011 with that number continuing to grow exponentially in subsequent years. By 2015, a Hartford Institute for Religion Research study showed that over five million people were attending services at a megachurch weekly which accounts for 50 percent of all American churchgoers.High on God: How Megachurches Won the Heart of America (Oxford University Press, 2020) by James K. Wellman Jr., Katie E. Corcoran, and Kate J. Stockly, is the first book to delve into why these churches have conquered the churchgoing market of America. Based on nearly 300 transcripts of focus groups and interviews, High on God highlights a commonality in the way attendees liken their religious experiences to that of a drug addiction. Using French sociologist Emile Durkheim's concept of homo duplex, the authors plot the structures that megachurches employ to satisfy the core human craving for personal meaning and social integration, as well as personal identity and communal solidarity.High on God is an honest account of the positive role megachurches play on bonding people together to lead lives of integrity, community, and responsibility. This book challenges the megachurch skeptics and shares insight into the experiences attendees have had and tells the history of this church model through present-day.Jim Wellman highlights these elements in this interview. Dr. Wellman is Professor and Chair of the Comparative Religion Program in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. Wellman's publications include an award-winning book, The Gold Coast Church and the Ghetto: Christ and Culture in Mainline Protestantism and Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest; edited volumes: Belief and Bloodshed: Religion and Violence Across Time and Tradition, and Religion and Human Security: A Global Perspective.Will Sipling is currently an independent scholar, with published research on religion and psychology, liturgical studies, and Frankfurt School social theory. He was previously a fellow of the Department of Catholic Studies and the Thomas J. Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law, and Public Policy at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) while earning a master’s degree. Will previously studied at Dallas Theological Seminary, writing a thesis on sacramental and liturgical theology. You can follow his work at williamsipling.com or at @WSipling. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

As the leader of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles during the 1980s, Father Luis Olivares brazenly defied local Catholic authorities and the federal government by publicly offering sanctuary to Central American migrants fleeing political violence and civil war, and later extending it to undocumented Mexican immigrants unable to legalize their status after the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. Twenty-five years after the priest’s death, Mario T. García has written the definitive account of Olivares’ life and the beginnings of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles.In Father Luis Olivares, A Biography: Faith Politics and the Origins of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles (UNC Press, 2018), García traces Olivares’ humble beginnings as a poor boy growing up in San Antonio’s west side barrio to his improbable rise as the “Gucci priest” of the Claretian order. After becoming involved with the Farmworker Movement, which led to an unexpected meeting with César Chávez in the mid-1970s, Olivares experienced a conversion that transformed him from the politically connected “GQ priest” to a community-centered cleric committed to achieving social justice for his barrio parishioners. Later, after assuming the leadership of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church (La Placita Church) in 1981, Olivares was transformed again, this time by Central American migrants seeking refuge from U.S. backed authoritarian regimes in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Combining liberationist theology with Saul Alinsky-styled grassroots activism, Father Olivares shepherded La Placita Church and the City of Los Angeles into the center of U.S.-Central American geopolitics and the budding national Sanctuary Movement. In this in-depth and intimate portrait of Los Angeles’ Latino priest, Garcia has not only written a biography of an unquestionably important individual, but also of a community and movement that continues to transform American society and politics.David-James Gonzales (DJ) is Assistant Professor of History at Brigham Young University. He is a historian of migration, urbanization, and social movements in the U.S., and specializes in Latina/o/x politics. Follow him on Twitter @djgonzoPhD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

For the author of the fourth Gospel, there is neither a Christless church nor a churchless Christ. In his book Ecclesiology and Theosis in the Gospel of John (Cambridge University Press, 2017), Andrew J. Byers argues that ecclesiology is as central a Johannine concern as Christology. Rather than focusing on the community behind the text, John's Gospel directs attention to the vision of community prescribed within the text, which is presented as a 'narrative ecclesiology' by which the concept of 'church' gradually unfolds throughout the Gospel's sequence. The theme of oneness functions within this script and draws on the theological language of the Shema, a centerpiece of early Jewish theology and social identity. To be 'one' with this 'one God' and his 'one Shepherd' involves the believers' corporate participation within the divine family. Such participation requires an ontological transformation that warrants an ecclesial identity expressed by the bold assertion found in Jesus' citation of Psalm 82: 'you are gods'.Dr. Andrew J. Byers is The Director of the Free Church Track & Lecturer in New Testament at Cranmer Hall at St John’s College at Durham University. He has served for 13 years in pastoral ministry both in the US and in the UK, and is the author of Theomedia: The Media of God and the Digital Age, and Faith Without Illusions: Following Jesus as a Cynic-Saint. His other writings have appeared in academic journals such as New Testament Studies and Novum Testamentum, and also in more popular-level publications such as Christianity Today and Relevant Magazine. He blogs (occasionally) at hopefulrealism.com.Jonathan Wright is a PhD student in New Testament at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He holds an MDiv from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a ThM from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and can be reached at jonrichwright@gmail.com, on Twitter @jonrichwright, or jonathanrichardwright.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

In today’s episode, we catch up with Paul Lay, editor of the leading journal History Today, and a senior research fellow in early modern history at the University of Buckingham. Paul is the author of a brilliant new account of the British republic. Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate (Head of Zeus, 2020) is the most up to date and accessible narrative of the crucial period in which, after a string of military victories and the invasions of Ireland and Scotland, the revolutionary regime over-reached itself in the failed conquest of Spanish South America, with dramatic consequences for the stability and integrity of government at home. The failed expedition dealt a crushing blow to the confidence of the regime, which believed that God was on its side, and exposed the weaknesses of those improvised systems of government that depended too much upon the security and ability of the single individual at its head. Providence Lost is a compelling and exciting account of a critical period in early modern British history.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Catherine Newell talks about the religious roots of the final frontier, focusing on the collaboration of artist Chesley Bonestell, science writer Willy Ley, and the NASA rocket engineer Wernher von Braun. Newell is an assistant professor of religion and science at the University of Miami. She’s the author of Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America’s Final Frontier (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017).Where did humanity get the idea that outer space is a frontier waiting to be explored? Destined for the Stars unravels the popularization of the science of space exploration in America between 1944 and 1955, arguing that the success of the US space program was due not to technological or economic superiority, but was sustained by a culture that had long believed it was called by God to settle new frontiers and prepare for the inevitable end of time and God’s final judgment. Religious forces, Newell finds, were in no small way responsible for the crescendo of support for and interest in space exploration in the early 1950s, well before Project Mercury—the United States’ first human spaceflight program—began in 1959.Michael F. Robinson is professor of history at Hillyer College, University of Hartford. He's the author of The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture (University of Chicago Press, 2006) and The Lost White Tribe: Scientists, Explorers, and the Theory that Changed a Continent (Oxford University Press, 2016). He's also the host of the podcast Time to Eat the Dogs, a weekly podcast about science, history, and exploration. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

One of the leading poets of his generation, Gerald Dawe is also a fellow emeritus and professor of English at Trinity College Dublin. Throughout his long writing career he has been thinking about the situation of religion in his native Belfast and the ways in which religion has been instrumentalised to serve competing political agendas. But his writing has always recognised the vitality of religious community and experience. His most recent collection of essays, The Sound of the Shuttle: Essays on Cultural Belonging and Protestantism in Northern Ireland (Irish Academic Press, 2020) gathers work from the 1980s to the present day that reflects upon the problem of Protestant culture in Northern Ireland. In this careful and deliberate work, Dawe points past the stereotypes that are projected and often appropriated by this often “faceless” community to identify and defend a broader and more inclusive sense belonging.Crawford Gribben is a professor of history at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests focus on the history of puritanism and evangelicalism, and he is the author most recently of John Owen and English Puritanism (Oxford University Press, 2016).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies