New Books in Christian Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com
Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/
Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork
1626
Noah Shusterman, “The French Revolution: Faith,...
This year marks the 225th anniversary of the outbreak of the French Revolution. You don’t have to be a historian to know and appreciate how significant that revolution is to our understanding of French society and culture since the eighteenth century.
61 min
1627
Edmund Levin, “A Child of Christian Blood: Murd...
There is a lot of nasty mythology about Jews, but surely the most heinous and ridiculous is the bizarre notion that “they” (as if Jews were all the same) have long been in the habit of murdering Christian children, draining them of blood,
65 min
1628
Brian A. Catlos, “Muslims of Medieval Latin Chr...
In the current political climate it might be easy to assume that Muslims in the ‘West’ have always been viewed in a negative light. However, when we examine the historical relationship between Muslims and their non-Muslim neighbors we find a much more ...
60 min
1629
Luke E. Harlow, “Religion, Race, and the Making...
Luke E. Harlow, Religion, Race and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880 (Cambridge University Press, 2014) examines the role of religion, and more specifically, conservative evangelical Protestant theology,
53 min
1630
John Cornwell, “The Dark Box: A Secret History ...
I’ve never been in a confessional box, but I’ve seen a lot of them in films. And if the depiction of them in films is in any way a reflection of popular attitudes toward confession, then I can say with some confidence that the act has a rather poor rep...
57 min
1631
Nathan Schneider. “God in Proof: The Story of a...
Nathan Schneider‘s monograph, God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet (University of California Press, 2013), explores the timeless challenge of how to explain God. Are such explanations rational?
57 min
1632
Joshua Dubler, “Down in the Chapel: Religious L...
In almost every prison movie you see, there is a group of fanatically religious inmates. They are almost always led by a charismatic leader, an outsized father-figure who is loved by his acolytes and feared by nearly everyone else.
66 min
1633
Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Terror in the Land of...
I have a colleague at Newman who takes students to Guatemala every summer. Since I arrived she’s encouraged me to join her. I would stay with the order of sisters who sponsor our university. I’d learn at least a few words of rudimentary Spanish.
40 min
1634
David N. Livingstone, “Adam’s Ancestors: Race, ...
A report to the General Assembly of Scottish Presbyterians of 1923 contains the following passage: “God placed the people of this world in families, and history which is the narrative of His providence tells us that when kingdoms are divided against th...
70 min
1635
Brent Nongbri, “Before Religion: A History of a...
We all know that religion is a universal feature of human history, right? Well, maybe not. In Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (Yale University Press, 2013), Brent Nongbri, Post Doctoral Fellow at Macquarie University,
72 min
1636
Molly Worthen, “Apostles of Reason: The Crisis ...
Molly Worthen, author most recently of Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism (Oxford University Press, 2013), spoke with Ray Haberski about the ideas that moved a variety of evangelicals in America over the last seventy...
59 min
1637
Vincent Geoghegan, “Socialism and Religion: Roa...
“Christianity and socialism go together like fire and water,” remarked August Bebel, Germany’s leading socialist, in 1874. The anticlerical violence of revolutions in Mexico, Russia, and Spain in the early twentieth century appears to confirm his verdi...
73 min
1638
Robert Yelle, “The Language of Disenchantment: ...
What is the nature of secularization? How distant are we from the magical world of the past? Perhaps, we are not as far as many people think. In the fascinating new book, The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in B...
66 min
1639
Henrietta Harrison, “The Missionary’s Curse and...
Henrietta Harrison‘s new book is the work of a gifted storyteller. In its pages, the reader will find Boxers getting drunk on communion wine, wolf apparitions, people waking up from the dead, ballads about seasickness, and flying bicycles.
63 min
1640
Reza Aslan, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesu...
Christians in the United States and around the world have varying images of Jesus, from one who turns the other cheek to one who brings the sword. Reza Aslan, in his highly popular and beautifully written new book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of...
41 min
1641
A. Glenn Crothers, “Quakers Living in the Lion’...
Deservedly or not, the members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) are often portrayed as one of history’s Good Guys. The Society was the first organized religious group to condemn slavery on moral and religious grounds.
61 min
1642
Scott Sowerby, “Making Toleration: The Repealer...
We all know that the “victors” generally write history. The “losers,” then, often get a bum rap. Such was the case with King James II. He’s got a pretty poor reputation, largely due to the purveyors of the “Whig Interpretation of History.
58 min
1643
Michael D. Bailey, “Fearful Spirits, Reasoned F...
Superstitions flourish in our world–think of the elaborate rituals of baseball players, or knocking wood to avoid tempting fate, or that bit of happiness (or relief) we might experience from finding a lucky (heads up only!) penny.
50 min
1644
Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, “The Color of C...
Jesus has inspired millions of people to both strive for social justice and commit horrific acts of violence. In the United States, Jesus has remained central in the construction of American identities and debates about Jesus have frequently revolved a...
65 min
1645
James K. Wellman, Jr., “Rob Bell and A New Ame...
As one of Time Magazine‘s “100 Most Influential People in the World” Rob Bell is a name that is now known well beyond the confines of his megachurch in Grandville, Michigan or within evangelical circles. Bell has been at the forefront of contemporary C...
63 min
1646
Linford Fisher, “The Indian Great Awakening: Re...
Just east of the Norwich-New London Turnpike in Uncasville, Connecticut, stands the Mohegan Congregational Church. By most accounts, it’s little different than the thousands of white-steepled structures dotting the New England landscape: the same high-...
64 min
1647
Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin, “El Iluminado:...
Are you looking for a good Hanukkah gift? A good Christmas gift? Heck, any gift? Or maybe you just want to read a terrific book? Well I’ve got just the ticket: Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin‘s, El Iluminado: A Graphic Novel (Basic Books, 2012).
56 min
1648
Mary Johnson, “An Unquenchable Thirst: Followin...
In December of 1975, Agnes Bojaxhiu, also known as Mother Teresa, appeared on the cover of TIME magazine with a caption that read: “Living Saints.” Mary Johnson, a teenage girl at the time, saw this cover and was drawn in by what she saw as a wonderful...
41 min
1649
Samuel Morris Brown, “In Heaven as it is on Ear...
Every person must confront death; the only question is how that person will do it. In our culture (I speak as an American here), we don’t really do a very good job of it. We face death by fighting it by any and every means at our disposal. Why we...
59 min
1650
Paul Gutjahr, “Charles Hodge: Guardian of Ameri...
When I was in Seminary I was assigned many theological tomes to read and one was especially difficult to get through. It was Systematic Theology by Charles Hodge. This work was dense, long, and I must confess, wound up mostly unread.
51 min