by David Swartz | Feb 17, 2020 | Opinion
Popular depictions of “ugly Americans” and intolerant missionaries buttress a long tradition of critical scholarship. It is a historiographical strain, says political scientist André Corten, that understands evangelicalism “as a bridgehead of American imperialism, the...
by David Swartz | Dec 17, 2019 | Opinion
“Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America,” Darren Dochuk’s epic history about oil and religion, covers two family dynasties. The Rockefellers, who launched Standard Oil, represented the civil religion of crude and its attempts to rationalize...
by David Swartz | Feb 6, 2019 | Opinion
On Feb. 1, 1973, U.S. Senator Mark Hatfield (R) of Oregon delivered a stinging address at the National Prayer Breakfast. With President Richard Nixon on his right, Billy Graham on his left, and Henry Kissinger and 3,000 other dignitaries in front of him in the...
by David Swartz | Jan 23, 2019 | Opinion
When Joseph E. Brown, a railroad and coal tycoon and former governor of Georgia, died in 1894, the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary offered this tribute: “Governor Brown was a friend and helper of our Seminary. … He has been for years, and was at...
by David Swartz | Jan 9, 2018 | Opinion
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was charged in 1921 with the sexual assault of actress Virginia Rappe at a raucous Hollywood party. According to investigators, the 266-pound film star attacked and raped her, ultimately killing Rappe when her bladder burst...
