New Books: Religion in the Oval Office by Gary Scott Smith
Dating all the way back to George Washington, faith has played a very important and often controversial role in the lives of American presidents. Nevertheless, few scholars have carefully analyzed how chief executives’ religious convictions affected their lives, policies, or…
New Books: Baptists in America: A History by Thomas S. Kidd and Barry Hankins
On September 5, 1651, a criminal named Obadiah Holmes was taken from his cell in Boston’s prison to receive his punishment: thirty lashes with a three-corded whip. Holmes had been alone in prison for weeks, struggling to come to terms…
New Books: Race, Religion, and Law in Colonial India by Chandra Mallampalli
In a crowded commercial neighborhood of the south Indian city of Bellary, there once stood a distillery owned and operated by a Tamil-speaking Protestant named Matthew Abraham. Matthew came from the low-ranking paraiyar community (one among so-called untouchable groups). In…
New Books: George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father by Thomas S. Kidd
Two inns in December, one in Bethlehem of Judea, and the other in Gloucester, England. These were the humble birthplaces of Jesus and, seventeen centuries later, one of his most celebrated disciples, George Whitefield. Whitefield himself made this connection to…
New Books: America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation by Grant Wacker
Billy Graham’s life started inauspiciously enough on a dairy farm near Charlotte, North Carolina, on November 7, 1918. The guns of the Great War in Europe fell silent on November 11. As an adult, Billy Frank––as his family called him––liked…