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It’s the very first episode of The Big Pitch with Jimmy Carr and our first guest is Phil Wang! And Phil’s subgenre is…This Place is Evil. We’re talking psychological torture, we’re talking gory death scenes, we’re talking Lorraine Kelly?! The Big Pitch with Jimmy Carr is a brand new comedy podcast where each week a different celebrity guest pitches an idea for a film based on one of the SUPER niche sub-genres on Netflix. From ‘Steamy Crime Movies from the 1970s’ to ‘Australian Dysfunctional Family Comedies Starring A Strong Female Lead’, our celebrity guests will pitch their wacky plot, their dream cast, the marketing stunts, and everything in between. By the end of every episode, Jimmy Carr, Comedian by night / “Netflix Executive” by day, will decide whether the pitch is greenlit or condemned to development hell! Listen on all podcast platforms and watch on the Netflix Is A Joke YouTube Channel . The Big Pitch is a co-production by Netflix and BBC Studios Audio. Jimmy Carr is an award-winning stand-up comedian and writer, touring his brand-new show JIMMY CARR: LAUGHS FUNNY throughout the USA from May to November this year, as well as across the UK and Europe, before hitting Australia and New Zealand in early 2026. All info and tickets for the tour are available at JIMMYCARR.COM Production Coordinator: Becky Carewe-Jeffries Production Manager: Mabel Finnegan-Wright Editor: Stuart Reid Producer: Pete Strauss Executive Producer: Richard Morris Executive Producers for Netflix: Kathryn Huyghue, Erica Brady, and David Markowitz Set Design: Helen Coyston Studios: Tower Bridge Studios Make Up: Samantha Coughlan Cameras: Daniel Spencer Sound: Charlie Emery Branding: Tim Lane Photography: James Hole…
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Interviews with Scholars of Christianity about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies
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1 Stephen Okey, "A Theology of Conversation: An Introduction to David Tracy" (Liturgical Press, 2018) 1:23:50
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Sometimes described as "a theologian's theologian," David Tracy's scholarship has impacted countless thinkers around the globe. The complexity of his thought, however, has often made engaging his work into a daunting challenge. Combining analysis of the most influential features of Tracy's theology (theological method, the religious classic, public theology) with a retrieval of his more overlooked interests (Christology, God), Stephen Okey presents the essential themes of Tracy's career in accessible and insightful prose. You can two interviews with David Tracy here and here . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Ryan Klejment-Lavin, "Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective" (American Society of Missiology, 2024) 46:02
The purpose of Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective (American Society of Missiology, 2024) is to describe how the North Korean refugee understanding of evil can shape missionary practice in the Korean Peninsula. The central research question guiding this study is, How do North Korean Christian refugees describe evil based on their lived experiences? Twelve North Korean Christian refugees were interviewed. The findings indicate that North Korean Christian refugees understand evil as the oppression of the vulnerable, primarily due to human activities, and as exemplified through governmental actions, human trafficking, and sexual violence. This study also discusses how North Korean refugees understand evil in light of theology, specifically teleology and theodicy, and explores how their understanding resonates with historic Christian beliefs in Korea. Analysis of the interviews provides practical implications for Christian ministry and theodicy as well as the sensitization of practitioners who work with North Korean refugees, specifically, to encourage practitioners to subvert the oppressive narratives that North Koreans are responsible for the evil that befalls them, and to be aware that refugees may have been traumatized by their own compatriots. Dave Broucek is a career practitioner and student of the global mission of the church. He values research into the lesser-known aspects of missions as well as scholarship that addresses the big questions of mission theory and practice. He considers it a privilege to host authors such as Dr. Klejment-Lavin in order to introduce their work to a wider public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 David G. Bonagura Jr, "100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles to Faith Today" (Sophia Institute, 2025) 1:07:41
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David Bonagura teaches classical languages and theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York and Catholic International University; he also teaches high school kids. He invited them to ask their questions about the faith, which led to some exciting classroom discussions and David’s new book— 100 Tough Questions for Catholics— which we are talking about today. David Bonagura’s website . David Bonagura’s new book, 1 00 Tough Questions for Catholics . David Bonagura’s previous appearance on Almost Good Catholics, episode 86: Jerome’s Tears: Death and Mourning in Christian Late Antiquity Chris Odyniec and Jonathon Fessenden take on the question of theodicy on Almost Good Catholics, episode 58: The Book of Job: Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Toine van Teeffelen, "The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir" (Wipf and Stock, 2024) 1:03:20
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The Birthplace of Jesus Is in Palestine: A Memoir (Wipf and Stock, 2024) is a narrative of a Christian family in Bethlehem in the West Bank. Based on diary entries and interviews from 2000 to 2023, the Dutch author--an anthropologist and peace activist--chronicles the spontaneous reactions of his Palestinian children and wife navigating the challenges posed by curfews and checkpoints. Problems of Palestinian school life are shown from the perspective of teachers and students. Against the background of Israeli occupation and settlement building, the intricacies of Palestinian culture in its daily rhythms and domestic spaces come to life. Throughout the pages, the key Palestinian concept of sumud, or steadfastness, is explored. The memoir details acts of creative nonviolent resistance, individual protests, affirmations of cultural identity, and inspiring examples of Muslim-Christian community. The book also reveals unexpected connections between Palestinian culture in the Bethlehem area and broader Christian values and traditions. An afterword reflects upon implications of Israel's war in Gaza. Roberto Mazza is currently a visiting scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs at Northwestern University. He is the host of the Jerusalem Unplugged Podcast and to discuss and propose a book for interview can be reached at robbymazza@gmail.com . Blusky and IG: @robbyref Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Korshi Dosoo and Markéta Preininger, "Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies" (de Gruyter, 2023) 1:28:50
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Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies (de Gruyter, 2023) offers an accessible repository of edited Coptic magical texts. The book is a careful and thorough edition and philological study of thirty-seven distinct Coptic manuscripts, covering a wide range of magical applications—from love spells, to curses, to exorcisms, and healing invocations. The volume makes available a rich set of evidence of everyday concerns of love, justice, strife, and health in late ancient Egypt to readers outside of the niche community of scholars of Coptic language. You will discover ancient ritual texts including instructions for healing bowels, a formula for sleep, a spell request for a good singing voice, and a love spell for attracting the attention of a crush in a one-sided romance. You will also find a curious assemblage of divine names and a list of material objects necessary for offerings that suggest need for ingredients like sweat of a bee, foam from the mouth of a horse, frog blood, incense, or different types of plant matter. For scholars interested in history of late ancient Egypt, history of Christianities, Manichaeism, Coptic language, esoterica and magic in late antiquity, material culture, or manuscripts this monograph will provide an important resource for the study and expansion of the vocabularies, grammars, and material practices of ancient rituals. Korshi Dosoo is is currently co-Principal Investigator of the “Corpus of Coptic Magical Formularies (CoMaF)” project based at the Julius Maximilian University Würzburg. Dr. Lydia Bremer-McCollum teaches Coptic at the University of Notre Dame and religious studies at Spelman College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Kirsten Macfarlane, "Lay Learning and the Bible in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World" (Oxford UP, 2024) 45:49
Early modernity has long been seen as a crucial period in the history of biblical scholarship, witnessing rapid advances in studies of Hebrew, Greek, and the ancient Jewish and Christian past. Historians have devoted much attention to how these developments were received by the academic and clerical elite, and yet there is little research on their reception beyond such exclusive circles. Some have even argued that ordinary believers had no interest in the demanding world of elite scholarship. According to current narratives, the Protestant laity were preoccupied by practical piety, scripture-reading, and devotional exercises, all of which were far removed from the dazzling polyglot erudition of the scholar. Lay Learning and the Bible in the Seventeenth-Century Atlantic World (Oxford University Press, 2024) offers an alternative account of popular religion in early modernity by reconstructing a striking and unstudied community of seventeenth-century puritan immigrants to North America. Composed of tradespeople without a university education, this community offers unparalleled evidence for lay engagement with even the most abstruse and challenging concerns of contemporaneous biblical scholarship. Drawing on whatever resources they could find, this group taught themselves the languages of biblical criticism; immersed themselves in the most specialized questions of controversial theology; and then promulgated, through their hard-earned learning, an unprecedentedly inclusive vision of education, society, and the church. By recovering their lives and interests, this book presents a new vision of lay puritanism in the Atlantic world, one marked by far greater ambition, critical thought, and intellectual boldness than ever before suspected. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Julia McClure, "Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire" (Oxford UP, 2025) 42:51
Empire of Poverty: The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire (Oxford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Julia McClure examines how changing concepts of poverty in the long-sixteenth century helped shape the deep structures of states and empires and the contours of imperial inequalities. While poverty is often understood to have become a political subject with the birth of political economy in the eighteenth century, this book points to the longer history of poverty as a political subject and a more complicated relationship between moral and political economies. It focuses upon the critical transformations taking place in the long-sixteenth century, with the emergence of the world´s first global empire and the development of colonial capitalism. The book explores how the 'moral-political economy of poverty' - defined as a new and changing conceptualisation of and approach to poverty, across laws, institutions, and acts of resistance - played a critical role in the development and governance of the Spanish Empire. In so doing it offers insights into the negotiated nature of sovereignty, the construction of inequalities, and strategies of resistance. Empire of Poverty explains how the combined processes of the transition to global capitalism and imperialism in the long-sixteenth century wrought a moral crisis which led to the transformation of poverty and reconceptualization of the poor and how the newly emerging beliefs, laws, and institutions of poverty helped structure the inequalities of the new global order. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:21:01
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Why did so many rulers throughout history risk converting to a new religion brought by outsiders? In his award-winning Unearthly Powers (2019), Dr. Alan Strathern set out a theoretical framework for understanding the relation between religion and political authority based on a distinction between two kinds of religion - immanentism and transcendentalism - and the different ways they made monarchy sacred. Please listen to his interview on that book on the New Books Network! This ambitious and innovative companion volume Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450–1850 (Cambridge University Press, 2024) tests and substantiates this approach using case studies from Kongo (1480–1530), Japan (1560–1614), Ayutthaya (Thailand, 1660–1690) and Hawaii (1800–1830). Through in-depth analysis of key turning points in the careers of warlords, chiefs and kings, a tapestry of unique characters and stories is brought to light. However, these examples ultimately demonstrate that global patterns of conversion can be established to illuminate the religious geography of the world today. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Richard Calis, "The Discovery of Ottoman Greece: Knowledge, Encounter, and Belief in the Mediterranean World of Martin Crusius" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:01:51
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In the late sixteenth century, a German Lutheran scholar named Martin Crusius compiled an exceptionally rich record of Greek life under Ottoman rule. Although he never left his home in the university town of Tübingen, Crusius spent decades annotating books and manuscripts, corresponding with the Greek Orthodox Patriarch, and interviewing Greek Orthodox alms-seekers. Ultimately, he gathered his research into a seminal work called the Turcograecia, which served for centuries as Europe’s foremost source on Ottoman Greece. Yet as Richard Calis reveals, Crusius’s massive—and largely untapped—archive has much more to tell us about how early modern Europeans negotiated cultural and religious difference. In particular, Crusius’s work illuminates Western European views of the religious “other” within Christianity: the Greek Orthodox Christians living under Ottoman rule, a group both familiar and foreign. Many Western Europeans, including Crusius, developed narratives of Greek cultural and religious decline under Ottoman rule. Crusius’s records, however, reveal in exceptional detail how such stories developed. His interactions with his Greek Orthodox visitors, and with a vast network of correspondents, show that Greeks’ own narratives of hardship entwined in complex ways with Western Europeans’ orientalist views of the Ottoman world. They also reflect the religious tensions that undergirded these exchanges, fueled by Crusius’s fervent desire to spread Lutheran belief across Ottoman Greece and the wider world. A lively intellectual history drawn from a forgotten archive, The Discovery of Ottoman Greece (Harvard UP, 2025) is also a perceptive character study, in which Crusius takes his place in the history of ethnography, Lutheran reform, and European philhellenism. Richard Calis is an Assistant Professor in Cultural History at Utrecht University, who specializes in the history of science and intellectual history Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel . Twitter . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
This is the first Syriac reader for the New Testament. It guides the reader through the Syriac New Testament Peshitta, glossing the uncommon words and parsing difficult word forms. It is designed for two groups of people. First, for students learning Syriac after a years’ worth of study this series provides the material to grow in reading ability from the primary texts. Second, this series is designed for scholars, linguists, theologians, and curious lay people looking to refresh their Syriac, or use them in preparation for their work of study, and teaching. The Syriac Peshiṭta Bible: The New Testament (Gorgias Press, 2023) immerses the reader in the biblical texts in order to build confidence reading Classical Syriac as quickly as possible. To achieve this, all uncommon words that occur fewer than 25 times in the Syriac New Testament are glossed as footnotes. This enables the beginner or intermediate student to continue reading every passage unhindered. Therefore, this book complements traditional language grammars and is especially ideal for beginner and intermediate students learning to read Syriac. However, even advanced readers will appreciate the glossing of the occasional rare word. Other features include: Maps from the New Testament period with Syriac place names Paradigm charts of Syriac nouns and verbs A glossary of all the words not glossed below the text The base text is the Antioch Bible which includes the Peshitta for the canonical Syriac books, and later translations (probably Philoxenian) for the rest which makes this ideal for readers. For listeners who are interested in buying this tool for themselves, Gorgias has offered a 10% discount code for listeners of this podcast through the end of May 2025 . If you order through the Gorgias website, simply enter the discount code NBNNTR10% at checkout. The book can be purchased from Gorgias here . A preview of the book can be found here . Timothy A. Lee is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on textual criticism of the Greek and Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, biblical interpretation, ancient history, and theology. Some of his work is published in journals such as Revue de Qumran, Textus , the Journal of Septuagint and Cognate Studies , and Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha. He has three previous degrees from the Universities of Oxford and Durham. Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Rochelle Rojas, "Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675" (Cornell UP, 2025) 45:09
Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Rochelle Rojas tells riveting stories of witchcraft in everyday life in early modern Navarra. Belief in witchcraft not only emerged in moments of mass panic but was woven into the fabric of village life. Some villagers believed witches sickened crops and cows with poisonous powders, others thought they engaged in diabolism and perverted sex, and still others believed they lovingly raised toads used to commit evil deeds. Most villagers, however, simply saw witches as those with reputations of being mala cristianas—bad Christians. Dr. Rojas illuminates the social webs of accusations and the pathways of village gossip that created the conditions for the witch beliefs and trials of the period. While studies of witchcraft in Spain tend to focus on the inquisitorial trials and witch panic of 1609–14, Bad Christians and Hanging Toads turns to witch trials conducted by the region's secular judiciary, Navarra's royal tribunals, tracing the prosecution of accused witches over 150 years. Using detailed evidence from trial records and neighbors' testimonies, Dr. Rojas vividly brings to life the women and men crafted as witches by their neighbors and the authorities and guides readers through the judicial process, from accusations and the examination of the evidence to sentencing and punishment. By privileging the voices of villagers throughout, Bad Christians and Hanging Toads demonstrates that the inner logic of early modern European witchcraft trials can be understood only by examining of the local, everyday aspects of witch belief. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Robert F. Darden and Stephen M. Newby, "Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andraé Crouch" (Oxford UP, 2025) 51:56
Gospel singer and seven-time Grammy winner Andraé Crouch (1942-2015) hardly needs introduction. His compositions--"The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power," "Through It All," "My Tribute (To God be the Glory)," "Jesus is the Answer," "Soon and Very Soon," and others--remain staples in modern hymnals, and he is often spoken of in the same "genius" pantheon as Mahalia Jackson, Thomas Dorsey and the Rev. James Cleveland. As the definitive biography of Crouch published to date, Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andraé Crouch (Oxford University Press, 2025) celebrates the many ways that his legacy indelibly changed the course of gospel and popular music. 10 Songs chosen by the authors: The Blood (Will Never Lose Its Power) I’ve Got Confidence My Tribute (to God be the Glory) Satisfied Bless His Holy Name Take Me Back Soon and Very Soon Bless His Holy Name Jesus is the Answer Just Like He Said He Would Robert F. Darden is Emeritus Professor of Journalism at Baylor University and the founder of the Black Gospel Music Preservation Project. He is the author of more than two dozen books and former Gospel Music Editor for Billboard magazine. Stephen M. Newby holds the Lev H. Prichard III Endowed Chair in the Study of Black Worship as Professor of Music and serves as Ambassador for Black Gospel Music Preservation at Baylor University. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Claire McNulty, "Edinburgh's Unruly Women: Gender, Discipline, and Power, 1560-1660" (Routledge, 2024) 36:29
Edinburgh's Unruly Women: Gender, Discipline, and Power, 1560-1660 (Routledge, 2024) examines experiences of church discipline across parish communities through Edinburgh and its environs. The book argues that experiences of discipline were not universal, varying according to any number of factors such as age, gender, marital status, and social rank. Adopting a case study approach, the book illuminates the voices of ordinary women as they appeared before their local kirk session (church court) where they navigated the church court system to settle neighbourly disputes, negotiate marriage contracts, or free their husbands from allegations of adultery. Edinburgh's Unruly Women argues that in the context of a deeply patriarchal society, experiences of discipline could not have been universal, but that in creating this strict culture of self-monitoring, the Church created opportunities for women to express power over one another, and indeed, over their male contemporaries. By placing female parishioners at the heart of the book, filled with individual case studies, Edinburgh's Unruly Women appeals to students and scholars of early modern women, religion, and gender more broadly, and to those with more specialist interest in both ecclesiastical discipline and the history of early modern Scotland in the localities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world. The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean? The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow. In Miracles and Wonder , Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…

1 Art and Its Holy Object (with Steve Auth) 1:10:32
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For the transcendental and numinous things, sometimes there are no words. But art—paintings, sculpture, music, film—can knock us sideways a little and help us see something, or understand a fleeting meaning, a dream we’ve woken from, that we try to hang onto. He was a successful Wall Street investment guy for decades, but he had a deep love of art and art history; after brush with death and a re-conversion to his Catholic faith, Stev Auth applied both of those gifts in service of his lay apostolate of evangelization. Today we talk about his new book— Visions of the Divine: An Artistic Journey into the Mystery of the Eucharist (Sophia, 2025)—and how Our Creator speaks to us through his artists, his creative creatures, on Almost Good Catholics. The book is filled with colorful photographs of inspiring masterpieces but small enough to carry with you to the museum or to read under a tree in the park. You can also read it with your computer at hand to look up the paintings online and magnify them as you read along with Steve’s conversational narrative (which is mostly how I read it). Steve Auth’s book, Visions of the Divine (Sophia Press, 20205) Steve Auth at the Regnum Christi website Steve Auth at the Lumen website Steve Auth’s video series Pilgrimage to the Museum at EWTN. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Stephanie Schmidt, "Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain: Missionary Narratives, Nahua Perspectives" (U Texas Press, 2025) 51:20
A cornerstone of the evangelization of early New Spain was the conversion of Nahua boys, especially the children of elites. They were to be emissaries between Nahua society and foreign missionaries, hastening the transmission of the gospel. Under the tutelage of Franciscan friars, the boys also learned to act with militant zeal. They sermonized and smashed sacred objects. Some went so far as to kill a Nahua religious leader. For three boys from Tlaxcala, the reprisals were just as deadly. In Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain (University of Texas Press, 2025), Dr. Stephanie Schmidt sheds light on a rare manuscript about Nahua child converts who were killed for acts of zealotry during the late 1520s. This is the Nahuatl version of an account by an early missionary-friar, Toribio de Benavente Motolinía. To this day, Catholics venerate the slain boys as Christian martyrs who suffered for their piety. Yet Franciscan accounts of the boys' sacrifice were influenced by ulterior motives, as the friars sought to deflect attention from their missteps in New Spain. Illuminating Nahua perspectives on this story and period, Schmidt leaves no doubt as to who drove this violence as she dramatically expands the knowledgebase available to students of colonial Latin America. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Katherine Stewart, "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 57:52
Today, and for the past several years, many people both here and abroad have been trying to make sense of the radical right and its financial and ideological grip on the Republican party. Why is it that so many Americans have turned against democracy? What explains the authoritarian reaction of so many American citizens, even when that reaction works so directly against their basic interests? How is it that this anti-democratic trend has escaped the explanatory frameworks of pundits and scholars alike? Perhaps we need to re-frame the narrative about the MAGA movement and the various constituencies that have somehow conspired to undermine democratic values and replace them with radical libertarian principles joined by theocratic, White nationalist, and anti-intellectual ideals. Addressing these concerns, Katherine Stewart has written Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy (Bloomsbury Press, 2025). Casting a light on the religious right’s “Funders, Thinkers, Sergeants, Infantry, and Power Players,” Stewart recounts her effort “to record what I have seen and heard from the leaders and supporters of the antidemocratic movement in the auditoriums and breakout rooms at national conferences, around the table at informal gatherings of activists, in the living rooms of the rank and file, and in the pews of hard-line churches. The story features a rowdy mix of personalities: ‘apostles’ of Jesus, atheist billionaires, reactionary Catholic theologians, pseudo-Platonic intellectuals, woman-hating opponents of ‘the gynocracy,’ high-powered evangelical networkers, Jewish devotees of Ayn Rand, pronatalists preoccupied with a dearth of (White) babies, COVID truthers, and battalions of ‘spirit warriors’ who appear to be inventing a new style of religion even as they set about undermining democracy at its foundations.” Over and against the idea that religion is a relatively insignificant factor in the rise of the radical political right, Stewart makes plain how Christian nationalism is “front and center” in the effort to solidify the power of the MAGA movement and Donald Trump’s presidency. Richard B. Miller is the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Emeritus Professor of Religion, Politics and Ethics at the University of Chicago. He previously taught in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University where he also served as Director of the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions. The author of numerous articles and books, the most of which is Why Study Religion? (NY: Oxford University Press, 2021). Bluesky . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

The images we use to think about moral character are powerful. They inform our understanding of the moral virtues and the ways in which moral character develops. However, this aspect of virtue ethics is rarely discussed. In Ecological Moral Character: A Catholic Model (Georgetown UP, 2024) , Nancy M. Rourke creates an ecological model through which we can form images of moral character. She integrates concepts of ecology with Aquinas' vision and describes the dynamics of a moral character in terms of the processes and functions that take place in an ecosystem. The virtues, the passions, the will, and the intellect, are also described in terms of this model. Ecological Moral Character asks readers to choose deliberately the models we use to imagine moral character and offers this ecological virtue model as a vital framework for a period of environmental crisis. Sam Young is a recent PhD graduate from Cardiff University and now independent scholar, specialising in the theological history of French social Catholicism during the 1920s and 1930s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Astrid von Schlachta, "Anabaptists: From the Reformation to the 21st Century" (Pandora Press, 2024) 1:05:51
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The Anabaptists, alongside the Lutheran and Reformed churches, were the third major current in the sixteenth century Reformation movements. From their beginnings, the Anabaptists were highly diverse and yet they shared some central beliefs and practices for which they were quickly persecuted – for example, defenselessness and nonresistance, the refusal to swear oaths, and the separation of church and state. Ideal for both teachers and students, this book provides a comprehensive and scholarly account of the history and development of the Anabaptists, alongside the Mennonite, Hutterite, and Amish traditions that emerged from their movement. Anabaptists: From the Reformation to the 21st Century (Pandora Press, 2024) shows the cultural diversity of the Anabaptists over five centuries as they moved between persecution and toleration, isolation and social integration, and traditionalization and renewal. Amidst these tensions, the Anabaptist story is told here anew based on the current state of the field on the eve of its 500-year anniversary. Written by an established scholar of Anabaptist history, and expertly translated into English by Victor Thiessen, this comprehensive study appears in the Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies series, edited by Maxwell Kennel, and published by Pandora Press. Maxwell Kennel is Senior Research Fellow with the Canadian Institute for Far-Right Studies (CIFRS), Director of Pandora Press, and Pastor at the Hamilton Mennonite Church. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

"In the beginning, God administrated." For as Donald Prudlo observes, "There can be no achievement without administration." In this book he seeks to restore the idea that while administration is necessary even in the institutional Church, holiness is not only possible for those charged with governance, but is a fulfillment and type of Christus Rector omnium, or "Christ, Ruler of all." Scrutinizing the relevant thought of Aristotle, Machiavelli, Thomas Aquinas, and Nietzsche, among others, Prudlo pursues the notion of order in governance and confronts both the bloat of bureaucracy and the "intoxicating nature of power." How can men and women who strive to live out humility and holiness likewise establish and participate in the structures that wield the powers of governance? Four early popes are given close attention for their respective administrations: Damasus I, Leo I, Gelasius I, and Gregory I. Emphasis is also given to the specific administrative genius that emerges from the monastic orders, including the 'Pachomian solution' and the Benedictine Rule. Governing Perfection (St. Augustine's Press, 2024) is an important contribution to the history of the papacy and origins of the modern-day Roman Curia, ecclesiology and its relevance to legal ordering, and administration within governance as affected by multiple legal and cultural traditions. It is a masterful presentation that provides both the framework and reflection needed to inspire true perfection the in administrative forum. The relevance and force of Prudlo's Governing Perfection makes it a choice follow-up to his recent translation of Bartholomew of the Martyr's classic, Stimulus Pastorum: A Charge to Pastors (2022). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Aaron Robertson, "The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America" (FSG, 2024) 54:58
How do the disillusioned, the forgotten, and the persecuted not merely hold on to life but expand its possibilities and preserve its beauty? What, in other words, does utopia look like in black? These questions animate Aaron Robertson’s exploration of Black Americans' efforts to remake the conditions of their lives. Writing in the tradition of Saidiya Hartman and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robertson makes his way from his ancestral hometown of Promise Land, Tennessee, to Detroit—the city where he was born, and where one of the country’s most remarkable Black utopian experiments got its start. Founded by the brilliant preacher Albert Cleage Jr., the Shrine of the Black Madonna combined Afrocentric Christian practice with radical social projects to transform the self-conception of its members. Central to this endeavor was the Shrine’s chancel mural of a Black Virgin and child, the icon of a nationwide liberation movement that would come to be known as Black Christian Nationalism. The Shrine’s members opened bookstores and co-ops, created a self-defense force, and raised their children communally, eventually working to establish the country’s largest Black-owned farm, where attempts to create an earthly paradise for Black people continues today. Alongside the Shrine’s story, Robertson reflects on a diverse array of Black utopian visions, from the Reconstruction era through the countercultural fervor of the 1960s and 1970s and into the present day. By doing so, Robertson showcases the enduring quest of collectives and individuals for a world beyond the constraints of systemic racism. The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America (FSG, 2024) offers a nuanced portrait of the struggle for spaces—both ideological and physical—where Black dignity, protection, and nourishment are paramount. This book is the story of a movement and of a world still in the making—one that points the way toward radical alternatives for the future. The Black Utopians is a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History. Kishauna Soljour is an Assistant Professor of Public Humanities at San Diego State University. Her most recent writing appears in the edited collection: From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 1:11:54
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A powerful new history detailing the most significant military clashes between Islam and Christendom over the 1,300 years of the Muslim caliphate. From the taking of the holy city of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim caliphs and sultans were locked in a 1300-year battle for political, military, ideological, economic and religious supremacy. In this powerful new history of the era, acknowledged expert on the history of the Middle East and the Crusades Simon Mayall focuses on some of the most significant clashes of arms in human history: the taking and retaking of Jerusalem and the collapse of the Crusader states; the fall of Constantinople; the sieges of Rhodes and Malta; the assault on Vienna and the 'high-water mark' of Ottoman advance into Europe; culminating in the Allied capture of Jerusalem in World War I, the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the dissolution of the sultanate and the caliphate, and the formation of modern Europe and the modern Middle East. The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate (Bloomsbury, 2024) offers a wide, sweeping narrative, encompassing the broad historical and religious context of this period, while focussing on some of the key, pivotal sieges and battles, and on the protagonists, political and military, who determined their conclusions and their consequences. Simon Mayall is a former soldier in the British Army, and an acknowledged expert on the history of the Middle East, and of the Crusades. Much of his 40-year professional career was focussed on the Middle East, and he has strong family and academic interests in the region. His last appointments were as the British Government's Defence Senior Adviser for the Middle East, and the Prime Minister's Security Envoy to Iraq and the Kurdish Region. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

Jana Byars talks to Miles Pattenden about his book, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford UP, 2017), just about to be released in paperback. This study offers a radical reassessment of the history of early modern papacy, constructed through the first major analytical treatment of papal elections in English. Papal elections, with their ceremonial pomp and high drama, are compelling theater, but, until now, no one has analyzed them on the basis of the problems they created for cardinals: how were they to agree rules and enforce them? How should they manage the interregnum? How did they decide for whom to vote? How was the new pope to assert himself over a group of men who, until just moments before, had been his equals and peers? This study traces how the cardinals' responses to these problems evolved over the period from Martin V's return to Rome in 1420 to Pius VI's departure from it in 1798, placing them in the context of the papacy's wider institutional developments. Miles Pattenden argues not only that the elective nature of the papal office was crucial to how papal history unfolded but also that the cardinals of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries present us with a unique case study for observing the approaches to decision-making and problem-solving within an elite political group. We also talk about the process in light of the upcoming Conclave and the election of a new pope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Timothy Twining, "The Limits of Erudition: The Old Testament in Post-Reformation Europe" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:10:06
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The history of early modern biblical scholarship has often been told as a teleological narrative in which a succession of radical thinkers dethroned the authority of the sacred word. The Limits of Erudition: The Old Testament in Post-Reformation Europe (Cambridge UP, 2024) tells a very different story. Drawing on a mass of archival sources, Timothy Twining reconstructs the religious, cultural, and institutional contexts in which the text of the Old Testament was considered and contested throughout post-Reformation Europe. In so doing, this book brings to light a vast array of figures from across the confessional spectrum who invested immense energy in studying the Bible. Their efforts, it shows, were not disinterested, but responded to pressing contemporary concerns. The Limits of Erudition employs a novel conceptual framework to resurrect a world where learning mattered to inquisitors and archbishops as much as to antiquaries, and in which the pursuit of erudition was too important to be left to scholars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, "Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts" (Eerdmans, 2025) 1:11:57
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The institution of slavery permeated the ancient world, such that the realities of slavery and its long shadows pervade the New Testament and other early Christian texts. Yet enslavement remains an under-taught aspect of the context of the New Testament and early Christianity, leaving pastors, laypersons, and neophyte college students alike to fill knowledge gaps about enslaved persons, enslavers, living and laboring conditions, and much more with partial information, assumptions, or a range of highly technical and specialized monographs. Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts (Eerdmans, 2025), co-edited by Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, takes on these issues, introducing readers to the textures, complexities, and material realities of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. International scholars with a range of expertise, from New Testament and early Christian studies to classics, theology, ethics, and more, contribute to a tapestry of introductory themes, topics, and interpretive frameworks with a wealth of literary, inscriptional, pictorial, and theoretical evidence from the material culture of Roman antiquity in this significant volume. Dr. Cobb and Dr. Shaner joined the New Books Network to initiate important conversations that they hope will continue in religious studies classrooms, schools of theology and divinity, and local church small group settings. Christy Cobb (Ph.D., Drew University, 2016) is Associate Professor of Christianity at the University of Denver. She is the author of Slavery, Gender, Truth and Power in Luke-Acts and Other Ancient Narratives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and has also co-edited a volume entitled Sex, Violence, and Early Christian Texts (Lexington Books, 2022). Dr. Cobb is also a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion , and her research and teaching interests include slavery, gender, sexuality, Acts, and Apocryphal Acts. In her recreational time, Christy enjoys reading novels, crafts, and spending time with her nine-year-old son in Denver. Katherine A. Shaner (Th.D., Harvard University Divinity School, 2012) is Associate Professor of New Testament at the Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She is the author of Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018) as well as numerous articles on slavery in the New Testament. Dr. Shaner is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and regularly preaches and teaches in churches around the United States. In her free time, Katherine enjoys hiking in the mountains, reading historical fiction, cooking dinner for friends and spending time with snuggly dogs. Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata : From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

The work of St. Bartholomew of Braga, O.P. (1514-1590) appears here in English for the first time despite its long and enduring influence in ecclesiastical circles. His meditations on the office of pastor have provided critical insight bishops since their initial circulation and have helped form the most famous among them, including Bartholomew's proteges Charles Borromeo. Pope Paul VI ordered a copy of Bartholomew's work to be distributed among the Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council. Donald Prudlo's translation-- Stimulus Pastorum: A Charge to Pastors (St. Augustine's Press, 2022)--situates St. Bartholomew of the Martyrs in his historical context as a lynchpin of Catholic Reform and affirms him as a figurehead of pastoral administration even in our own times. A beautiful read, and Don discusses why every new bishop should have a copy, and every cardinal entering the conclave should keep Bartholomew's counsel in his discernment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 John Van Maaren, "The Gospel of Mark's Judaism and the Death of Christ as Ransom for Many" (Mohr Siebeck, 2025) 30:10
Does the Gospel of Mark reflect a post-Jewish, Gentile Christianity? Perhaps not. John Van Maaren says the Gospel of Mark should be read as an expression of first-century Judaism. Tune in as we speak with John Van Maaren about his recent book, The Gospel of Mark’s Judaism and the Death of Christ as Ransom for Many (Mohr Siebeck, 2025). John Van Maaren earned his PhD from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (2019), and is currently FWF ESPRIT postdoctoral fellow, University of Vienna, Austria. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Udi Greenberg, "The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:13:56
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Reconciliation between Europe's Protestants and Catholics led to a new era of Christian collaboration. Why did these erstwhile foes end their schism and begin to make peace? In this riveting study, Udi Greenberg shows that ecumenism grew out of a shared desire to protect against perceived threats to Christian life. The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s (Harvard UP, 2025) overturns conventional wisdom about this revolutionary change by showing that the cause was not growing mutual tolerance but solidarity against the threats of socialism, feminism, and liberation movements. By working together Christians could defend their dominance in European life by maintaining and reinforcing the inequality inherent in Christian hierarchical order. Peacemaking between the confessions was accelerated by the rise of the Nazis, when Christian denominations debated their relations to each other and to nationalism, and was further pressed by the Cold War and decolonization, when Catholic and Protestant authorities formally declared each other "brethren in faith". Working together, Catholics and Protestants designed Europe's economic policies, regulated its sexual practices, and shaped postwar relationships with the Global South. This coalition of Christians has grown more cohesive over time as they leveraged their alliance to maintain influence across a politically fractured Europe. Related: Listen to the New Books Network interview with Udi Greenberg about The Weimar Century: German Emigres and the Ideological Foundation of the Cold War Author recommended reading: The Question of Unworthy Life: Eugenics and Germany's Twentieth Century by Dagmar Herzog Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Asa Simon Mittman, "Cartographies of Exclusion: Anti-Semitic Mapping in Medieval England" (Penn State UP, 2024) 1:06:22
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From the battles over Jerusalem to the emergence of the “Holy Land,” from legally mandated ghettos to the Edict of Expulsion, geography has long been a component of Christian-Jewish relations. Attending to world maps drawn by medieval Christian mapmakers, Cartographies of Exclusion: Anti-Semitic Mapping in Medieval England (Penn State University Press, 2024) by Dr. Asa Simon Mittman brings us to the literal drawing board of “Christendom” and shows the creation, in real time, of a mythic state intended to dehumanize the non-Christian people it ultimately sought to displace. In his close analyses of English maps from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Asa Simon Mittman makes a valuable contribution to conversations about medieval Christian perceptions of Jews and Judaism. Grounding his arguments in the history of anti-Jewish sentiment and actions rampant in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England, Dr. Mittman shows how English world maps of the period successfully Othered Jewish people by means of four primary strategies: conflating Jews with other groups; spreading libels about Jewish bodies, beliefs, and practices; associating Jews with Satan; and, most importantly, cartographically “mislocating” Jews in time and space. On maps, Jews were banished to locations and historical moments with no actual connection to Jewish populations or histories. Medieval Christian anti-Semitism is the foundation upon which modern anti-Semitism rests, and the medieval mapping of Jews was crucial to that foundation. Dr. Mittman’s thinking offers essential insights for any scholar interested in the interface of cartography, politics, and religion in premodern Europe. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Let's face it, most of the popular podcasts out there are dumb. NBN features scholars (like you!), providing an enriching alternative to students. We partner with presses like Oxford, Princeton, and Cambridge to make academic research accessible to all. Please consider sharing the New Books Network with your students. Download this poster here to spread the word. Please share this interview on Instagram , LinkedIn , or Bluesky . Don't forget to subscribe to our Substack here to receive our weekly newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Las G. Newman, "To Die in Africa’s Dust: West Indian Missionaries in Western Africa in the Nineteenth Century" (Langham, 2024) 1:32:52
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Christian mission in the modern era has generally been conceptualized as a Western endeavor: “from the West to the rest.” The rise and explosive growth of world Christianity has challenged this narrative, emphasizing Christian mission as “from everywhere to everywhere.” Dr. Las Newman contributes to this revitalized perspective, interrogating our understanding of modern missions history by drawing attention to the role of African West Indians in the spread of Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa. This comparative study of three nineteenth-century missionary expeditions critiques common narratives around West Indian involvement in the missionary enterprise. In To Die in Africa’s Dust: West Indian Missionaries in Western Africa in the Nineteenth Century (Langham, 2024), Dr. Newman proposes that far from being misguided adventurers or nostalgic exiles, African West Indians were fueled by a quest for emancipation that was birthed in the crucible of Caribbean slave society. Acting as agents of the Western missionary enterprise, they nevertheless shaped an understanding of Christian mission as a force for justice and freedom that carried with it personal, religious, and socio-political implications. Dr. Newman argues that it was this conception, embraced and championed by African West Indians, that enabled the missionary project in Western Africa to survive, flourish, and ultimately take firm root in African soil. This study questions historical interpretations of the Western missionary endeavor, exploring the pivotal role of native agents in cross-cultural Christian mission and allowing readers to hear from marginalized voices as they tell their own stories of engagement, struggle, and liberation. Dave Broucek is a former mission worker in the West Indies and a mission educator and mission administrator. As a lifelong learner in the field of global mission, he values authors who tell the lesser-known stories of mission history and who provide critical reflection on the practice of Christian mission. He considers it a privilege to host authors such as Dr. Newman in a project to disseminate their work to a wider public. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Timothy A. Brookins, "Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Corinthians: Paul, Stoicism, and Spiritual Hierarchy" (Eerdmans, 2024) 1:00:52
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The First Letter to the Corinthians begins with an admonishment of the church over their internal division and reliance on human wisdom. What exactly occasioned Paul’s advice has perennially troubled New Testament scholars. Many scholars have asserted that Paul disapproved of the Corinthians’ infatuation with rhetoric. Yet careful exegesis of the epistle problematizes this consensus. In Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Corinthians (Eerdmans, 2024), Timothy A. Brookins unsettles common assumptions about the Corinthian conflict in this innovative monograph. His close reading of 1 Corinthians 1–4 presents evidence that the Corinthian problem had roots in Stoicism. The wisdom Paul alludes to is not sophistry, but a Stoic-inspired understanding of natural hierarchy, in which the wise put themselves above believers they considered spiritually underdeveloped. Moreover, Paul’s followers saw themselves as a philosophical school in rivalry with other Christians, engendering divisions in the church. Combining scriptural exegesis and investigation of Greco-Roman philosophical culture, Brookins reconstructs the social sphere of Corinth that Paul addresses in his letter. His masterful analysis provides much needed clarity on the context of a major epistle and on Pauline theology more broadly. Timothy A. Brookins is Professor of Early Christianity at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. His research interests include the Pauline epistles and the Greco-Roman philosophical and rhetorical traditions. He is the author of Reading 1 Corinthians: A Literary and Theological Commentary and Ancient Rhetoric and the Style of Paul's Letters . Jonathon Lookadoo is Associate Professor at the Presbyterian University and Theological Seminary in Seoul, South Korea. While his interests range widely over the world of early Christianity, he is the author of books on the Epistle of Barnabas, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Shepherd of Hermas, including The Christology of Ignatius of Antioch (Cascade, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Timothy Bertolet, "The Obedience of Sonship: Adamic Obedience and the Heavenly Ascension in Hebrews" (Fontes Press, 2023) 30:31
What is the connection between the Sonship of Christ and his ascension in the book of Hebrews? You can find out by tuning in as we speak with Timothy Bertolet about his recent book, The Obedience of Sonship . Timothy J. Betolet is Director of Theological Education for ABWE International. He also serves as adjunct professor at Lancaster Bible College. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 James M. O’Toole, "For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:04:25
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For generations, American Catholics went faithfully to confession, admitting their sins to a priest and accepting through him God’s forgiveness. The sacrament served as a distinctive marker of Catholic identity, shaping parishioners’ views of their relationship to God, their neighbors, and the wider world. But starting in the 1970s, many abandoned confession altogether. Focusing on the experiences of both laypeople and priests, in For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America (Harvard University Press, 2025) Dr. James M. O’Toole reconstructs the history of confession’s steady rise—and dramatic fall—among American Catholics. In the early United States, the Catholic Church grew rapidly—and with it, confession’s centrality. Although the sacrament was practiced unevenly for much of the nineteenth century, frequent confession became common by the early twentieth. Both priests and parishioners understood confession as a ritual crucial for the soul, while on a social level, it established Catholic distinctiveness within a largely Protestant country. Today, however, even faithful Catholics seldom confess. The reasons for this change, Dr. O’Toole reveals, include the emergence of psychology and other forms of counseling; the Church’s stance against contraception, which alienated many parishioners; and a growing sense of confession’s inability to confront social problems like structural racism, poverty, and sexism. Meanwhile, increasing recognition of sexual abuse within the Church further undermined trust in clergy as confessors. Sensitively attuned to the historical importance of confession, For I Have Sinned also suggests that, if the sacrament no longer serves the needs of US Catholics, the Church and its members might find new ways to express their ideals in the twenty-first century. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s episodes on New Books with Miranda Melcher , wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 David Hollenbach, "Human Rights in a Divided World: Catholicism as a Living Tradition" (Georgetown UP, 2024) 1:07:56
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In his most recent book, Human Rights in a Divided World: Catholicism as a Living Tradition (Georgetown UP, 2024), Jesuit scholar and Georgetown professor, Fr David Hollenbach explains the Judeo-Christian roots of our concept of human rights and the contributions of secular institutions like the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). He explains further when it is right for a country to intervene in the affairs of its neighbors, codified by the UN in 2005 as the Responsibility to Protect in answer to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that gave lie to the world’s promise of “never again” after the horrors of the Holocaust. He contrasts the doctrine of R2P with the tragic case of a homicide in Kew Gardens in 1964 where 38 witnesses, all law-abiding “good people,” failed to intervene because they assumed someone else would do it. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asked God (Gen 4:9). “Who is my neighbor?” The lawyer asked Jesus (Lk 10:29), to which Our Lord told the parable of the Good Samaritan. Perhaps these questions are a little more complicated between sovereign nations than they are between travelers on a dangerous road, but Fr. David guides us through the Catholic Church’s moral teachings, the principles of proportionality and of just war, and the ability and desire to do something even when we can’t do everything. Fr David’s book: Human Rights in a Divided World . Fr David’s faculty website at Georgetown. Responsibility to Protect , the R2P doctrine at the UN website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 David D. Grafton, "Muhammad in the Seminary: Protestant Teaching about Islam in the Nineteenth Century" (NYU Press, 2024) 1:21:43
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Uncovers what Christian seminaries taught about Islam in their formative years Throughout the nineteenth century, Islam appeared regularly in the curricula of American Protestant seminaries. Islam was not only the focus of Christian missions, but was studied as part of the history of the Church as well as in the new field of comparative religions. Moreover, Arabic was taught as a cognate biblical language to help students better understand biblical Hebrew. Passages from the Qur'an were sometimes read as part of language instruction. Christian seminaries were themselves new institutions in the nineteenth century. Though Islam had already been present in the Americas since the beginning of the slave trade, it was only in the nineteenth century that the American public became more aware of Islam and had increasing contact with Muslims. It was during this period that extensive trade with the Ottoman empire emerged and more feasible travel opportunities to the Middle East became available due to the development of the steamship. Providing an in-depth look at the information about Islam that was available in seminaries throughout the nineteenth century, Muhammad in the Seminary (NYU Press, 2024) examines what Protestant seminaries were teaching about this tradition in the formative years of pastoral education. In charting how American Christian leaders' ideas about Islam were shaped by their seminary experiences, this volume offers new insight into American religious history and the study of Christian-Muslim relations. The Rev. Dr. David D. Grafton is the Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations on the faculty of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford International University Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel . Twitter . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

Peter Brown 's fascinating Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350-550 AD (Princeton UP, 2014) chronicles the changing conceptions of wealth and treasure in late antiquity and the first centuries of Christianity. For our 2020 series in the rise of money (we also spoke to Thomas Piketty and Christine Desan ) Brown related the emergence, in the 3rd and 4th century AD, of striking new ideas about charity and how to include the poor inside a religious community. Brown explains the importance of civic euergetism in the Greek and Roman worldview–i.e. benefaction and charity strictly confined to the good of the city. In early Christianity, this was replaced by compensatory almsgiving by the rich to benefit the lowly poor, or beggars. That notion of the rich being “less likely to enter heaven than a camel going through the eye of a needle”–that, says Brown, “was Jesus at its wildest.” Augustine even preached about almsgiving as “like a traveller’s check” that let the rich bank up credit in heaven. But most crucial of all to Brown’s argument about changed ideas of wealth is that Christianity initiated the world-transformational notion of corporate identity. Before Oxford, before the East India Company, before IBM, the “managerial Bishop” (Brown’s brilliant coinage) is not wealthy in his own right, but is an agent of “impersonal continuity.”.Brown thinks Foucault got this kind of “pastoralism” in Church leaders partially right. But Foucault–“an old fashioned Catholic in many ways” Brown remarks slyly–underestimated the desire of the Christian community to designate a “consumer-driven” church hierarchy in which they can invest. Pressed on the question of resonance to our own day, Brown (as a “good semi-Durkheimian of the Mary Douglas variety”) stresses that “these are almost incommensurable societies.” And he does note an ominous Roman parallel in present-day “personalization of power”–understanding the odious Putin by reading Seneca. Nonetheless, Brown makes clear his enduring admiration for Late Antiquity–compared to classical Greece and perhaps to our own day–because of its “remarkable tolerance for anomaly.” Brown has that too, more power to him! Mentioned in the Episode Peter Brown, Body and Society (1968) Peter Brown,. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (1968) Peter Brown, The Cult of the Saints (1981) Peter Brown, The Ransom of the Soul (2015) Evelyne Patlagean, Pauvreté économique et pauvreté sociale à Byzance, 4e-7e siè ( Economic Poverty and Social Poverty ) Augustine, Confessions (c. 400 AD and many other works available here ) Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977–1978 (on priests and the importance of the pastoral or shepherding metaphor) George Lakoff and Michael Johnson, Metaphors We Live By Seneca, Letters from a Stoic Listen and Read Here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Colby Gordon, "Glorious Bodies: Trans Theology and Renaissance Literature" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 56:07
Glorious Bodies: Trans Theology and Renaissance Literature (U Chicago Press, 2024) offers a prehistory of transness that recovers early modern theological resources for trans lifeworlds. In this striking contribution to trans history, Colby Gordon challenges the prevailing assumption that trans life is a byproduct of recent medical innovation by locating a cultural imaginary of transition in the religious writing of the English Renaissance. Marking a major intervention in early modern gender studies, Glorious Bodies insists that transition happened, both socially and surgically, hundreds of years before the nineteenth-century advent of sexology. Pairing literary texts by Shakespeare, Webster, Donne, and Milton with a broad range of primary sources, Gordon examines the religious tropes available to early modern subjects for imagining how gender could change. From George Herbert’s invaginated Jesus and Milton’s gestational Adam to the ungendered “glorious body” of the resurrection, early modern theology offers a rich conceptual reservoir of trans imagery. In uncovering early modern trans theology, Glorious Bodies mounts a critique of the broad consensus that secularism is a necessary precondition for trans life, while also combating contemporary transphobia and the right-wing Christian culture war seeking to criminalize transition. Developing a rehabilitative acco unt of theology’s value for positing trans lifeworlds, this book leverages premodern religion to imagine a postsecular transness in the present. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

While scholars of ancient Mediterranean literature have focused their efforts heavily on explaining why authors would write pseudonymously or anonymously, less time has been spent exploring why an author would write orthonymously (that is, under their own name). The Author in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge UP, 2025) explores how early Christian writers began to care deeply about 'correct' attribution of both Christian and non-Christian literature for their own apologetic purposes, as well as how scholars have overlooked the function that orthonymity plays in some early Christian texts. Orthonymity was not only a decision made by a writer regarding how to attribute one's own writings, but also how to classify other writers' texts based on proper or improper attribution. This Element urges us to examine forms of authorship that are often treated as an unexamined default, as well as to more robustly consider when, how, for whom, and for what purposes an instance of authorial attribution is deemed 'correct. New Books in Late Antiquity is Presented by Ancient Jew Review Chance Bonar is a postdoc at Tufts University. Michael Motia teaches in the classics and religious studies department at UMass Boston Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Alexandra Verini, "English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) 31:31
English Women’s Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) uncovers a tradition of women’s utopianism that extends back to medieval women’s monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures. The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women’s literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women’s intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Catalin-Stefan Popa, "The Making of Syriac Jerusalem" (Routledge, 2023) 1:07:46
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This book discusses hagiographic, historiographical, hymnological, and theological sources that contributed to the formation of the sacred picture of the physical as well as metaphysical Jerusalem in the literature of two Eastern Christian denominations, East and West Syrians. Popa analyses the question of Syrian beliefs about the Holy City, their interaction with holy places, and how they travelled in the Holy Land. He also explores how they imagined and reflected the theology of this itinerary through literature in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, set alongside a well-defined local tradition that was at times at odds with Jerusalem. Even though the image of Jerusalem as a land of sacred spaces is unanimously accepted in the history of Christianity, there were also various competing positions and attitudes. This often promoted the attempt at mitigating and replacing Jerusalem’s sacred centrality to the Christian experience with local sacred heritage, which is also explored in this study. Popa argues that despite this rhetoric of artificial boundaries, the general picture epitomises a fluid and animated intersection of Syriac Christians with the Holy City especially in the medieval era and the subsequent period, through a standardised process of pilgrimage, well-integrated in the custom of advanced Christian life and monastic canon. The Making of Syriac Jerusalem (Routledge, 2023) is suitable for students and scholars working on the history, literature, and theology of Syriac Christianity in the late antique and medieval periods. Catalin-Stefan Popa is Research Professor in Church History at the Romanian Academy in Bucharest. He holds his Ph.D. from Georg August University of Göttingen, Germany (2016). In 2021 he received the venia legendi (habilitation) at Karl Franzens University of Graz, Austria. He published articles, and edited volumes on Syriac and Oriental ecclesiastical history, exegesis, and literature, including the monograph Gīwargīs I. (660–680). Ostsyrische Christologie in frühislamischer Zeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016). He is the editor-in-chief and founder of The Syriac Annals of Romanian Academy (SARA). New Books in Syriac Studies is presented by Kristian Heal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

Shallow and quickly outdated Christian worship practices have left many searching for something with deeper roots. Many churches have rediscovered the importance of the sacraments, particularly the Lord's Supper. The number of churches that are observing more frequent communion continues to grow. What's lacking is guidance from the past on this issue. How did infrequent communion become a "tradition" in so many churches? What historical, political, and theological factors were involved? As one of the leading evangelical pastors and scholars of the late eighteenth century, John Brown of Haddington has much to teach. Not satisfied with the practice of his own Scottish Reformed tradition, Brown left a manuscript advocating more frequent communion among his papers after his death. It was published in 1804 but has remained inaccessible to a large audience until now. Dr. Gregory Soderberg used Brown as one of his sources in his doctoral study of communion frequency in the Reformed tradition, which was the first full-length, scholarly treatment of the subject. Although Brown wrote for his own time, his arguments are still relevant. In John Brown of Haddington on Frequent Communion (Wipf & Stock, 2024), readers will find a brilliant mind engaging the issue of communion frequency with wit and erudition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Kristin A. Olbertson, "The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 46:01
The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) by Dr. Kristin Olbertson is the first comprehensive study of criminal speech in eighteenth-century New England, traces how the criminalization, prosecution, and punishment of speech offenses in Massachusetts helped to establish and legitimate a social and cultural regime of politeness. Analyzing provincial statutes and hundreds of criminal prosecutions, Dr. Olbertson argues that colonists transformed their understanding of speech offenses, from fundamentally ungodly to primarily impolite. As white male gentility emerged as the pre-eminent model of authority, records of criminal prosecution and punishment show a distinct cadre of politely pious men defining themselves largely in contrast to the vulgar, the impious, and the unmanly. “Law,” as manifested in statutes as well as in local courts and communities, promoted and legitimized a particular, polite vision of the king's peace and helped effectuate the British Empire. In this unique and fascinating work, Dr. Olbertson reveals how ordinary people interacted with and shaped legal institutions. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Manu Pillai, "Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity" (Allen Lane, 2025) 1:02:51
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What is Hinduism? For centuries, that question was particularly thorny, both for local Indians and for colonial outsiders. People inside and outside the country tried to define what Hinduism was. Missionaries grappled with Hindu practices, finding both similarities and dangerous differences with their own Christian faith. The East India Company adopted several Hindu rituals to keep the peace, much to the chagrin of officials back in London. And, increasingly, Indians began to define what Hinduism meant as part of a broader political awakening. Manu Pillai tells that story in his latest book Gods, Guns and Missionaries: The Making of the Modern Hindu Identity (Allen Lane: 2024) Manu Pillai is the author of the critically acclaimed The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore (HarperCollins: 2016), Rebels Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji (Juggernaut: 2018), The Courtesan, the Mahatma, and the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History (Context: 2019) and False Allies: India's Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma (Juggernaut: 2021). Former chief of staff to Shashi Tharoor MP, Pillai is also a winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar (2017) and holds a PhD in history from King’s College London. His essays and writings on history have appeared in various national and international publications. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Ellen Fenzel Arnold, "Medieval Riverscapes: Environment and Memory in Northwest Europe, C. 300-1100" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 53:35
Jana Byars talks to Ellen Arnold about Medieval Riverscapes: Environment and Memory in Northwest Europe, 300 - 1100 (Cambridge UP, 2024). Fishermen, monks, saints, and dragons met in medieval riverscapes; their interactions reveal a rich and complex world. Using religious narrative sources to evaluate the environmental mentalities of medieval communities, Ellen F. Arnold explores the cultural meanings applied to rivers over a broad span of time, ca. 300-1100 CE. Hagiographical material, poetry, charters, chronicles, and historiographical works are explored to examine the medieval environmental imaginations about rivers, and how storytelling and memory are connected to lived experiences in riverscapes. She argues that rivers provided unique opportunities for medieval communities to understand and respond to ecological and socio-cultural transformations, and to connect their ideas about the shared religious past to hopes about the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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New Books in Christian Studies

1 Jeffrey Thomas Perry, "Law in American Meetinghouses: Church Discipline and Civil Authority in Kentucky, 1780–1845" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022) 45:24
Most Americans today would not think of their local church as a site for arbitration and would probably be hesitant to bring their property disputes, moral failings, or personal squabbles to their kin and neighbors for judgment. But from the Revolutionary Era through the mid-nineteenth century, many Protestants imbued local churches with immense authority. Through their ritual practice of discipline, churches insisted that brethren refrain from suing each other before "infidels" at local courts and claimed jurisdiction over a range of disputes: not only moral issues such as swearing, drunkenness, and adultery but also matters more typically considered to be under the purview of common law and courts of equity, including disputes over trespass, land, probate, slave warranty, and theft. In Law in American Meetinghouses: Church Discipline and Civil Authority in Kentucky, 1780–1845 (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022), Jeffrey Thomas Perry explores the ways that ordinary Americans--Black and white, enslaved and free--understood and created law in their local communities, uncovering a vibrant marketplace of authority in which church meetinghouses played a central role in maintaining their neighborhoods' social peace. Churches were once prominent sites for the creation of local law and in this period were a primary arena in which civil and religious authority collided and shaped one another. When church discipline failed, the wronged parties often pushed back, and their responses highlight the various forces that ultimately hindered that venue's ability to effectively arbitrate disputes between members. Relying primarily on a deep reading of church records and civil case files, Perry examines how legal transformations, an expanding market economy, and religious controversy led churchgoers to reimagine their congregations' authority. By the 1830s, unable to resolve doctrinal quibbles within the fellowship, church factions turned to state courts to secure control over their meetinghouses, often demanding that judges wade into messy ecclesiastical disputes. Tracking changes in disciplinary rigor in Kentucky Baptist churches from that state's frontier period through 1845, and looking beyond statutes and court decrees, Law in American Meetinghouses is a fresh take on church-state relations. Ultimately, it highlights an oft-forgotten way that Americans subtly repositioned religious institutions alongside state authority. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies…
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