Between the Trees

I recently read this description of a major modern American evangelical:
“[He] was a showman who introduced drama and excitement into his sermons by pounding the pulpit, standing on a chair, doing handsprings, and jumping on top of the pulpit. He preached what one observed called a ‘muscular Christianity.’ Jesus, ‘was no dough-faced, lick-spittle proposition,’ he [...]

So I’m doing a paper on Menelik II of Ethiopia and while researching I came across this nugget:
“During the 1890s, Menelik heard about the modern method of executing criminals using electric chairs, and he ordered 3 for his kingdom. When the chairs arrived, Menelik learnt they would not work, as Ethiopia did not yet have [...]

I’m currently taking two classes at UNL that are looking at medieval history. In my reading for one class I came across this passage, that struck me as being both horrifying and hilarious:
“The citizens of a certain town had once an officer in their service who had freed them from foreign aggression; daily they took [...]

Another instance of the historian in me cringing: several times lately, I have heard the accusation leveled that tendencies in the Church to systematize theology, to define orthodoxy over against heresy and to dogmatize doctrine are all products of Enlightenment rationalism. This is absolute nonsense.
Irenaeus, one of the earliest church fathers whose work we still [...]

“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips…”
-Isaiah 6:5
Persecution. Crusades. Empire-building. Messy political entanglements. The inquisition. Witch hunts. Burnings at the stake. Slavery. Terrorism. Discrimination. Homophobia. Sexism. Prosperity teaching. Corruption. Adultery.
To too many people, this seems [...]

Whenever someone tells you that you have fundamentally misunderstood what the bible is saying because of some tidbit of historical data they possess, be suspicious.
Okay, so that’s an over dramatization. But the more classical history I study, the more I cringe at the sort of historical method most preachers, and even some theologians, possess. I’d [...]