Tag Archives: Thomas Kidd

Christmas gift ideas: history books!

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This would seem like a great time of the year to recommend history books for you to consider for Christmas gifts.  But this is also a great time of the year for me to be up to my gills in papers and exams that I need to grade.   So for now, I’m just going to make a quick post that directs you to two fine Christian historians, Thomas Kidd and John Fea, to read their recommendations.

You can read Kidd’s recommendations here.   Fea’s recommendations are here.

Oh, and you really ought to read books that each has written about the role of religion and the founding of the United States:  Thomas Kidd,  God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (Basic Books, 2010) and John Fea, Was America Founded As a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction, (Westminster John Knox Press, 2011).

 

 

 

 

 

Twitter and World Christianity

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OK, you might think, after reading my “Strangers on the Doorstep” posts, I shouldn’t really just wait around for people from around the world to arrive on my doorstep, if I’m interested in world Christianity.

That’s right, I might think, in response to your thinking.  Obviously there are many ways for you to be connected and involved.  For instance, think of the good you could do for world Christianity by Tweeting!

Youcef Nadarkhani

If that sounds superficial and absurd (and even if it does not sound superficial and absurd) you should check out the recent Anxious Bench blog by Thomas Kidd.  He writes how an Iranian convert to Christianity and pastor named Youcef Nadarkhani has recently been released from prison after being jailed for apostasy from Islam.  The interesting part, especially for all you social-media-savvy folk out there (you are social-media-savvy, aren’t you — you’re reading my blog after all) is that Christians launched a Facebook and Twitter campaign to help support efforts by the American Center for Law and Justice and the State Department to put pressure on the Iranian government.

Spoiler Alert:  If you haven’t switched over to Kidd’s blog yet and you don’t mind me telling you a interesting little nugget from his story, read on.  A great deal of this social media support came from…Brazilian evangelicals.  Of course!  That’s just what you were thinking, isn’t it?

It’s an interesting (and important) little event in worldwide evangelical cooperation.  I’m telling you, we need to think about getting more knowledgeable about this world Christianity stuff…..