The Conference on Faith and History Podcast

Faith and History
  • 0.0 (0)
  • History
  • Updated Monthly

The Conference on Faith and History hosts a monthly virtual coffee. Those conversations are available as a podcast afterwards for the entire audience of those who follow our organization.

  1. 12/17/2024

    "Secondary Sources" E5: Interview with Nadya Williams

    In the fifth episode of Secondary Sources, co-hosts Prisca Bird and David McFarland interview Dr. Nadya Williams. In addition to discussing her book "Cultural Christians in the Early Church: A Historical and Practical Introduction to Christians in the Greco-Roman World" (Zondervan, 2023), this episode features candid discussion about the challenges and opportunities when navigating professional and personal commitments. 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.

    "Secondary Sources" E5: Interview with Nadya Williams

  2. 11/07/2024

    November Book Talk | One Lost Soul by Daniel Silliman

    Impious and amoral, petty and vindictive, Richard Nixon is not the typical protagonist of a religious biography. But spiritual drama is at the heart of this former president’s tragic story.    The night before his resignation, Richard Nixon wept—and prayed. Though his demanding parents had raised him Quaker, he wasn’t a regular churchgoer, nor was he quick to express vulnerability. As Henry Kissinger witnessed Nixon’s loneliness and humiliation that night, he remarked, “Can you imagine what this man would have been had somebody loved him?”   In this provocative and riveting biography, Daniel Silliman cuts to the heart of Nixon’s tragedy: Nixon wanted to be loved by God but couldn’t figure out how. This profound theological struggle underlay his successes and scandals, his turbulent political career, his history-changing victories, and his ultimate disgrace. As Silliman narrates the arc of his subject’s life and career, he connects Nixon’s character to religious influences in twentieth-century America—from Cold War Christianity to Chick tracts.   Silliman paints a nuanced spiritual portrait of the thirty-seventh president, just as he offers fresh insight into US political and religious history. Readers who lived through Watergate will discover a new perspective on an infamous controversy. A historical page-turner, One Lost Soul will surprise and absorb students, scholars, and anyone who likes a good story. Enjoy a book talk with Dr. Daniel Silliman about his book, One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search for Salvation (Eerdmans, 2024). This conversation was moderated by Dr. Daniel K. Williams.

  3. 10/04/2024

    September 2024 Book Talk | Turning Points in American Church History by Elesha Coffman

    American history has profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, Christianity. Turning Points in American Church History provides a brisk and lively yet deeply researched survey of these intertwined forces from the colonial period to the present. Elesha Coffman tells the story of Christianity in the United States by focusing on 13 key events over four centuries of history. The turning points are as varied as the movements they track, including a naval battle, a revival, a schism, a court case, an outpouring of the Spirit, an act of terrorism, the election of a bishop, and the election of a president. Coffman highlights women and men from a range of traditions and shows how, throughout these events, Christians endeavored to discern what it meant to live faithfully in the diverse and rapidly changing place that became the United States.  This book helps readers understand their own faith and the landscape of American religion. Each chapter includes a hymn, a prayer, relevant historical images, excerpts from primary sources, and resources for further reading. Foreword by Mark A. Noll. Enjoy a book talk with Dr. Elesha Coffman on her book, Turning Points in American Church History (Baker, 2024). This conversation was moderated by Dr. Aaron Griffith.

  4. 09/25/2024

    "Secondary Sources" E4: Interview with Leah Payne

    In the fourth episode of Secondary Sources, co-hosts Prisca Bird and David McFarland interview Dr. Leah Payne and discuss her book "God Gave Rock and Roll To You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music" (Oxford, 2024). This episode is a fantastic follow-up to the May 2024 CFH Book Talk episode also featuring Dr. Payne.  Our conversation went in a new direction by looking at the implications and applications of this scholarship to teaching high school students, particularly Christian students, who have inevitably been shaped by the subculture's music (even if it was the music their parents listened to!) 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.

    "Secondary Sources" E4: Interview with Leah Payne

  5. 09/16/2024

    August 2024 Book Talk | Claiming the Courageous Middle by Shirley Mullen

    Today’s political and cultural polarization has led to suspicion and animosity in our churches, our workplaces, and even our families. It has also led to a false sense that our options are limited to choosing a side. But there is a better way. Shirley Mullen invites readers to claim the powerful, redemptive potential of the courageous middle. Far from being a place of bland averaging, moral cowardice, wobbling indecisiveness, or lazy indifference, the courageous middle is a place where though...

  6. 07/12/2024

    July 2024 Book Talk | A Prairie Faith by John J. Fry

    The beloved Little Housebooks by Laura Ingalls Wilder have sold over 60 million copies since their publication in the first half of the twentieth century. Even her unpolished memoir, Pioneer Girl, which tells the true story behind the children’s books, was widely embraced upon its release in 2014. Despite Wilder’s enduring popularity, few fans know much about her Christian beliefs and practice. John J. Fry shines a light on Wilder’s quiet faith in this unique biography. Fry surveys the Little Housebooks, Pioneer Girl, and Wilder’s lesser-known writings, including her letters, poems, and newspaper columns. Analyzing this wealth of sources, he reveals how Wilder’s down-to-earth faith and Christian morality influenced her life and work. Interweaving these investigations with Wilder’s perennially interesting life story, A Prairie Faith illustrates the Christian practices of pioneers and rural farmers during this dynamic period of American history. Enjoy a book talk with Dr. John J. Fry on his book, A Prairie Faith: The Religious Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder (Eerdmans, 2024). This conversation was moderated by Lucy S. R. Austen, author of Elisabeth Elliot: A Life (Crossway, 2023).

  7. 06/12/2024

    June 2024 Book Talk | Reading Evangelicals by Daniel Silliman

    The story of five best-selling novels beloved by evangelicals, the book industry they built, and the collective imagination they shaped  Who are evangelicals? And what is evangelicalism? Those attempting to answer these questions usually speak in terms of political and theological stances. But those stances emerge from an evangelical world with its own institutions—institutions that shape imagination as much as they shape ideology.  In this unique exploration of evangelical subculture, Daniel Silliman shows readers how Christian fiction, and the empire of Christian publishing and bookselling it helped build, is key to understanding the formation of evangelical identity. With a close look at five best-selling novels—Love Comes Softly, This Present Darkness, Left Behind, The Shunning, and The Shack—Silliman considers what it was in these books that held such appeal and what effect their widespread popularity had on the evangelical imagination.  Reading Evangelicals ultimately makes the case that the worlds created in these novels reflected and shaped the world evangelicals saw themselves living in—one in which romantic love intertwines with divine love, humans play an active role in the cosmic contest between angels and demons, and the material world is infused with the literal workings of God and Satan. Silliman tells the story of how the Christian publishing industry marketed these ideas as much as they marketed books, and how, during the era of the Christian bookstore, this—every bit as much as politics or theology—became a locus of evangelical identity. Enjoy this book talk with Dr. Daniel Silliman on his book, Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith. This conversation was moderated by Dr. Joey Cochran.

  8. 05/20/2024

    May 2024 Book Talk | God Gave Rock and Roll to You by Leah Payne

    In God Gave Rock and Roll to You (OUP, 2024), Leah Payne traces the history and trajectory of CCM in America and, in the process, demonstrates how the industry, its artists, and its fans shaped–and continue to shape–conservative, (mostly) white, evangelical Protestantism. For many outside observers, evangelical pop stars, interpretive dancers, puppeteers, mimes, and bodybuilders are silly expressions of kitsch. Yet Payne argues that these cultural products were sources of power, meaning, and political activism. Throughout, she draws on in-depth interviews with CCM journalists, publishers, producers, and artists, as well as archives, sales and marketing data, fan magazines, merchandise–everything that went into making CCM a thriving subculture. Ultimately, Payne argues, CCM spurred evangelical activism in more potent and lasting ways than any particular doctrine, denomination, culture war, or legislative agenda had before. Enjoy a book talk with Dr. Leah Payne on her book, God Gave Rock and Roll to You (OUP, 2024). This conversation was moderated by Dr. Joey Cochran, Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Wheaton College.

See All (50)

About

The Conference on Faith and History hosts a monthly virtual coffee. Those conversations are available as a podcast afterwards for the entire audience of those who follow our organization.

Information