One of the main arguments of my forthcoming religious biography of Ben Franklin is that key relationships with evangelicals and Calvinists, like the revivalist George Whitefield, tethered the skeptical Franklin to the Puritan faith of his upbringing. One of the most important tethering relationships for Franklin was with his evangelical sister Jane. I first encountered Jane (Franklin) Mecom in Jill Lepore’s marvelous Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin.

Lepore details Ben and J..

Faith Cook is an author, biographer, and hymn writer. She grew up as a missionary child in war-torn China and has chronicled her story in an autobiography.

Her own biographical work has been on both men:

Fearless Pilgrim: The Life and Times of John Bunyan
William Grimshaw of Haworth and women:

The Nine Day Queen of England: Lady Jane Grey,

Selina: Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening, and Anne Bradstreet: Pilgrim and Poet

This week marks the 219th birthday of Charles Hodge, arguably the most influential American theologian of the nineteenth century. Some called Hodge the “Pope of Presbyterianism.” Hodge’s stature in American religious history has faded, obscured by figures from his era with more dubious legacies, including the evangelist Charles Finney, and Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism. But Hodge’s place in the first rank of American theologians received a deserved boost from Paul Gutjahr’s excellent bi..

‘Tis the season to argue about religion. Or more specifically, to feud about whether to say Merry Christmas or Seasons Greetings . . . to boycott Starbucks because of its holiday cup . . . or to allow a crèche or menorah to stand on public property.

What would Americans at the time of the founding think about all this?

They would have been perplexed. Perplexed, first, at the ways that we fuss about the public role of religion. The Revolutionary era was shot through with public expressions of f..

There’s a stark difference between the tranquil, happiness-filled Christmas that companies market to us beginning every Black Friday, and the Christmas that many of us actually experience. If you are reading this blog post, you’re certainly old enough to have experienced the difference. Remembering loved ones no longer there at the celebrations. Estrangements that the holidays only magnify. Financial stress that the holidays exacerbate. If we’re honest, I suspect that many of us sitting in churc..

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Cal Newport had a provocative recent column at The New York Times titled “Quit Social Media: Your Career May Depend Upon It.” In spite of being a bestselling author and blogger, as well as a tenured computer science professor at Georgetown, Newport ..

December 9, 1812 is the birth date of James Henley Thornwell, the South Carolina Presbyterian pastor and professor whom Eugene Genovese and Elizabeth Fox-Genovese called the antebellum South’s “most formidable theologian.” Thornwell was a great champion of what he called the “regulated freedom” of antebellum slave society.

Historian George Bancroft once described Thornwell as “the most learned of the learned,” the epitome of the antebellum southern gentleman theologian. He graduated from South ..

Montgomery municipal buses were each comprised of thirty-six seats.

The first ten were reserved for whites only. The last ten seats were theoretically reserved for blacks. The middle sixteen seats were first-come-first-serve, with the bus driver retaining the authority to rearrange seats so that whites could be given priority.

Rosa Parks was sitting in an aisle seat on the front row of this middle section. To her left, across the aisle, were two black women. To her right, in the window seat, w..

A new study of Ontario churches suggests that orthodox theology, and innovative styles of worship and communication, are among the most common ingredients in growing congregations. Perhaps more striking is that these patterns of growth are happening even in certain mainline congregations in Canada, a country generally regarded as more liberal and secular than much of the United States.

Canada’s largest mainline denominations have seen their total membership drop by half since the 1960s. The Can..

In November of 1963, C. S. (“Jack”) Lewis knew that his end was near. He had been a widower for three years. In July, he had come out of a coma, only to be diagnosed with late-stage kidney failure. He retired from his post at Cambridge University, choosing to die at home in the Kilns, where he lived with his brother, Major Warren (”Warnie”) Lewis, three years his senior.

On Friday, November 22, Jack arose at 8:00 a.m. GMT to eat breakfast and to look at the crossword puzzle in the paper.

After..