Enjoy this conversation between Dr. Joey Cochran and Dr. Paul Gutacker on Gutacker's book, The Old Faith in a New Nation.

BOOK SUMMARY
Conventional wisdom holds that tradition and history meant little to nineteenth-century American Protestants, who relied on common sense and “the Bible alone.” The Old Faith in a New Nation challenges this portrayal by recovering evangelical engagement with the Christian past. Even when they appeared to be most scornful toward tradition, most optimistic and forward-looking, and most confident in their grasp of the Bible, evangelicals found themselves returning, time and again, to Christian history. They studied religious historiography, reinterpreted the history of the church, and argued over its implications for the present. Between the Revolution and the Civil War, American Protestants were deeply interested in the meaning of the Christian past.

Paul J. Gutacker draws from hundreds of print sources-sermons, books, speeches, legal arguments, political petitions, and more-to show how ordinary educated Americans remembered and used Christian history. While claiming to rely on the Bible alone, antebellum Protestants frequently turned to the Christian past on questions of import: how should the government relate to religion? Could Catholic immigrants become true Americans? What opportunities and rights should be available to women? To African Americans? Protestants across denominations answered these questions not only with the Bible but also with history. By recovering the ways in which American evangelicals remembered and used Christian history, The Old Faith in a New Nation shows how religious memory shaped the nation and interrogates the meaning of “biblicism.

Enjoy this conversation between Dr. Joey Cochran and Dr. Daniel Hummel about his book, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism.

In The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism, Daniel G. Hummel illuminates how dispensationalism, despite often being dismissed as a fringe end-times theory, shaped Anglo-American evangelicalism and the larger American cultural imagination. Hummel locates dispensationalism’s origin in the writings of the nineteenth-century Protestant John Nelson Darby, who established many of the hallmarks of the movement, such as premillennialism and belief in the rapture. Though it consistently faced criticism, dispensationalism held populist, and briefly scholarly, appeal—visible in everything from turn-of-the-century revivalism to apocalyptic bestsellers of the 1970s to current internet conspiracy theories. Measured and irenic, Hummel objectively evaluates evangelicalism’s most resilient and contentious popular theology. As the first comprehensive intellectual-cultural history of its kind, The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism is a must-read for students and scholars of American religion. 

In this third episode of Secondary Sources, co-hosts Prisca Bird and David McFarland interview Dr. Lynneth Miller Renberg. Secondary Sources is a podcast that seeks to connect scholars and secondary teachers who are both committed to the effective discipleship of students through compelling historical research and dynamic pedagogy. It is produced by secondary educators connected to The Conference on Faith & History. 

Debates over curriculum have long been part of the discussion over what is taught in history courses. Most recently these questions have come to the surface with the 1619 project, debates over Critical Race Theory (CRT), and most recently Florida Governor Ron Desantis decision not to allow the AP’s African American History to be taught in Florida Public Schools.  Our panel of four Gen Z professional women will discuss the importance of history courses, particularly African American history, how they discuss difficult topics and how their experiences dealing with difficult topics has influenced the work they are currently doing.

In this second episode of Secondary Sources, co-hosts Prisca Bird and Zachary Cote interview Dr. Paul Gutacker. Secondary Sources is a podcast that seeks to connect scholars and secondary teachers who are both committed to the effective discipleship of students through compelling historical research and dynamic pedagogy. It is produced by secondary educators connected to The Conference on Faith & History. 

This episode is a book talk with Dr. James C. Ungureanu about his book, Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition.

Heidi Olson Campbell hosts a panel on witch-hunts and magic, which includes panelists Elaine Breslaw, Lisa Diller, Aaron Larsen, and Philip Jenkins.

In this inaugural episode of Secondary Sources, co-hosts Prisca Bird and David McFarland interview Dr. Andrea Turpin. Secondary Sources is a podcast that seeks to connect scholars and secondary teachers who are both committed to the effective discipleship of students through compelling historical research and dynamic pedagogy. It is produced by secondary educators connected to The Conference on Faith & History. 

This is the podcast of our CFH virtual coffee panel on the topic of secondary sources. Moderator Paul Thompson discusses secondary education with Ron Sorenson, Veronica Gutierrez, Zachary Cote, David McFarland, and Prisca Bird.