Is Church History Repeating Itself? A Bold Look with Elesha Coffman

>> Loren Richmond: Welcome to the Future Christian podcast, your source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in the 21st century. At the Future Christian podcast, we talk to pastors, authors, and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical wisdom to help you and your community of faith walk boldly into the future.

Whether you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member of your faith community, this podcast is designed to challenge, inspire, and equip you with the tools you need for impactful ministry. And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode. >> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian podcast. Today, Loren Richmond Junior welcomes Doctor

Elesha Coffman to the show. Doctor Coffman is an accomplished historian and associate professor at Baylor University, specializing in the study of american religious history. She earned her PhD in american religious history from Duke University and has contributed significantly to the field through her extensive research and publications. Coffman is the author of the Christian Century and the rise of the Protestant Mainline, as well as turning points in american church history, which

we'll be talking about today. Her work examines the intersections of media, religion, and culture, highlighting the role of religious publications in shaping public discourse. Kaufman's scholarly pursuits focus on how religious groups engage with broader societal issues, offering valuable insights into the evolving landscape of american faith and identity. And of course, a

reminder. Before we start today's conversation, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a review, and share future Christian with a friend. Your engagement helps to ensure that these important conversations about navigating and resourcing the future of the church continue and reach more people. >> Loren: Alright. Welcome to the Future Christian podcast. This is Loren Richmond, Junior, and today I am pleased to be welcoming Doctor Elesha Coffman So thank you so much

for being here. Welcome to the show. >> Elesha: Thanks so much for the invitation. I'm looking forward to this. >> Loren: Yeah. Anything else you'd like to share with our listeners? Just about yourself. >> Elesha: Oh, wow. I, uh, grew up in central Indiana. Um, big basketball fan, as one is growing up in central Indiana and then graduate school at Duke.

Um, I don't know what. I was a journalist, uh, between undergrad and grad school, so I've been both a journalist and a historian. >> Loren: Okay, so Duke, you're duke fans. That means, like, half the listenership probably hates you, and then m the other ones love, uh, you, right? >> Elesha: Yes. Yes. Duke. People. People either love Duke or love to hate Duke. And we'll take both. >> Loren: What do you think about the new coach then? I guess the question.

>> Elesha: Johnny Shire. So this is wild to me. He was a student when I was there in grad school, and I think he was a religion minor, so I would see him around the building, my PhDs in religion. So I still remember seeing him in the hallways and always being shocked. He's so tall. They're all so tall. Even if you're not the tallest member of a, uh, d one basketball, they're still so tall. >> Loren: Right, right. All right, all right. Well, that's a

little interesting tidbit here. Um, before we get into Duke basketball, because I could just, I had a guest, we chatted New York Knicks basketball. Um, before we got into the conversation. We'll save our listeners from that share if you would just come out. Your faith journey. What's that looked like in the past and what that looks like today? >> Elesha: Yeah, I was raised evangelical, sort of non denominational or

denominational. Nomad mhm, born in Washington state and then grew up in central Indiana and went to several different kinds of churches growing up. And then went to Wheaton College, also evangelical, non denominational, pan denominational. And then I worked at Christianity today briefly. So again, we're solidly in the evangelical world. Grad

school at Duke. Duke is historically Methodist, but, um, the graduate program in religion has all kinds of denominations and non christian faiths as well, in terms of the student population and what people train in. And my first book was on the protestant mainline and the christian century. So the arch rival to Christianity today, which is where I had been a journalist, not at Christianity Today magazine, but at the company, at some of their other titles.

I didn't want to write about evangelicals. I wanted to write about something that was adjacent to my own experience. And in the process of that research and personal church experiences, um, have been attending more mainline churches since grad school. So I currently attend the episcopal church that I can walk to from my house here in Waco. >> Loren: Awesome, awesome. Thanks for sharing that, M. Gosh, I was going to ask something follow up. Anyway, how about this?

Uh, any spiritual practices you find meaningful, you're willing to share? >> Elesha: So I'm a choral musician, um, amateur. I took one semester of voice at Wheaton, and I find the practice of singing in a group singing religious, ah, repertoire. Um, that is a spiritual practice for me. Um, combination of the lyrics and music, the experience of singing, particularly in a church space, the visuals and acoustics of that, but also the togetherness of

it. So I was one of those people. That was one of the things that was really hard about the pandemic was not having corporate singing anymore. I really, uh, missed that. And I like to listen to it and I like to participate in it. >> Loren: Yeah, I remember. I was going to ask you. Wheaton. I remember hearing a lot about Wheaton when I was a kid. Wheaton, uh, was kind of, at least I was told, a very prestigious school evangelically. I'm curious still, what's its

reputation today? Is there similarities to Fuller? Which is fuller as kind of, like, quasi mainline, or is Wheaton still pretty entrenched in evangelical world? >> Elesha: That's an interesting question. I would think of Wheaton as still entrenched in the evangelical world, but american evangelicalism is notoriously hard to define or pin down. Um, Wheaton is sort of the intellectual, leading edge of it. Um, Christianity today is right up

the street. So, um, more of a pro education, at least somewhat cosmopolitan. And unfortunately, the stark dividing line now never trumpers. Yeah, right. So, um, but that's not most of evangelicalism. So they're kind of like a, quote unquote, leading institution, but they're also kind of out on their own, advocating for a tradition that is no longer as strong and maybe never was as

strong. There are comparisons to the christian century and the mainline tradition that the christian century placed itself as this leading periodical. Well, it had a really small, elite readership. Was it leading? Who were they leading? Or were these people who had learned things? A lot of the readers were clergy had learned things in seminary. Really nuanced, complicated things about the Bible, about church history, about, um, the potential for better race relations in

the country. You know, that coming out of seminary, and then you get into a congregation and your congregants are just sitting there, arms crossed, looking at you like, don't you even tell me about advances in biblical studies. Don't you even tell me about why white supremacy is a bad thing. Um, I think evangelicals in the United States didn't used to have that experience as much. Um, clergy and laity were more on the

same page. And now the minority of evangelical clergy who aren't full Trump bandwagon are having some of the same experiences that mainline clergy had throughout the 20th century, is one way to put it. >> Loren: Hmm. Man, I wish we had time to talk about that. Yeah, well, we're not here to talk about that. Uh, we are here to talk about her book, turning points in american church history, how pivotal events

shaped a nation and a faith. But I told, uh, I told Lisha already, like, I want to have her back to talk about that first book, but that sounds really more, um. I'm officially more motivated to have the conversation now. Um, but let's talk. If you want to give just a little quick overview about the book. We're going to primarily talk in chapter eight, but why don't you for our listeners, just talk about the context and overview of the book.

>> Elesha: Sure. Turning points in church history was a book that one of my mentors, Mark Noel, wrote, uh, over 25 years ago. So that's a survey of all of church history acts forward, um, in a 1314 chapter format. I think he added another chapter for a later. It's been in four editions now. It's been in print

continuously. Took a church history class, the first church history class I took, which was after undergrad, but when I was editing a magazine called Christian History and I needed to know something about it, I took it from Mark Noll and he taught that class from his turning points book. So that was an early exposure that I had both to that book, that idea, um, and church history as a whole.

Then after I did my PhD in american religious history and I was teaching, I used his book once for a uh, church history

survey at the undergrad level. And then my second teaching job was at a seminary in Dubuque and I was the church history person. Every fall it was early and medieval church history. Every spring I was supposed to teach reformation, modern Europe and us church history all in a twelve week semester, which is insane. And I wanted to get in more american church history at ah, Duke, where I had trained in that seminary. It was a three course

church history sequence. There was one early medieval, one reformation in modern Europe, and then one whole class on american church history. So I was trying to think in this teaching context, how do I get the best of the content from what used to be a full semester of american church history for seminarians into the two weeks that I have for american church history in my current teaching context?

And I thought, wouldn't it be great if there was a turning points book like Mark Knowles because it covered so much content without feeling overwhelming, because it focuses on particular events and there's enough time at that focus to get a sense. This is the geographic context, this is the political context, this is a little bit of the personalities of the individuals involved. This is what was at stake and for whom. Wouldn't it be great if there was a

turning points book just on american church history? And so I talked to the publisher, Baker academic. Uh, are there plans for this? Is this going to be a series of. They hadn't really thought about it as a series. They didn't have any plans. And then after my first book came out, so I was an established author, those conversations became well would you be willing to write, uh, turning points in american church history book? And unfortunately, I've forgotten what your original question

was, but that was how it came to be. So I then called Mark Noel again, said, because he's also trained as an americanist, if you were to write a, uh, turning points in american church history book, which turning points would you focus on? And so then I started from the notes from that conversation and then amended the list somewhat. The challenge being, okay, I have 13 chapters. I wanted to go all the way from the defeat of the spanish armada in 1588 to the election of

Ronald Reagan in 1980. What dates can I space out on a timeline to then imagine somebody in a teaching context, at a seminary, in an undergrad institution, or in a church adult education or christian formation class? So we can do a creditable job of covering that sweep of time of different denominations in american church history with enough of a focus on events to get that sense of what was at stake and for whom. Not just do you need to memorize a bunch of names and dates, because

that's what history is. Because I thought I hated history all the way through high school and most of undergrad, because I thought it was names and dates and memorizing and wars and presidents, and it didn't have anything to do with me. Um, so when I became a history teacher and writer, I always wanted to emphasize, no, there was something at stake and for individual people. And this all helps explain why the world we inhabit has the contours that it does. Everything that we see has a

history. Let's dig in and try to find out some of why what we see is the way it is. >> Loren: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. And that's, uh, great to my question. I'm curious, like, one of the questions I wanted to ask is there honorable mentions that you really want to include, but didn't have the context, space, whatever, to fit in? >> Elesha: Um, Mark Nol's foreword, he mentions a couple that he would have put in. Um, there's not an american revolution

chapter. The american revolution in my book comes up in the chapter on the founding of the black church tradition. That was somewhat accidental. That was how the timeline fell. But that was also somewhat intentional. A lot of what, particularly white Americans think about the nation's history and about the impact of the revolution and the constitution, well, there's all kinds of more freedom. Not so much if you were black and enslaved, and a lot of enslaved people had sided with the British

because the British were promising freedom instead. And when the British lost, they had to flee the country. It's just a very different way of thinking about this founding event and remembering what was at stake and for whom really varied regionally and racially. Uh, Mark Noll also would have, um, had more about the Hart cellar act. This was the change in immigration law in the 1960s. From the early 1920s to the mid 1960s, the United States pretty well shut its

borders to immigration. There had been tons of immigration, 1880s to 1920s. Then there was this sort of nativist backlash. We shut the borders for a while. There was very little immigration, mostly from Europe, and then the law changed again in 1965. And initially, Americans didn't think it would have that big of an impact.

Well, it has. There's been so much immigration since then from lots of different parts of the world, and a lot of immigrants are Christians, and they're bringing different christian traditions to the United States. And I agreed with them that that could have been a turning point, that I could have done a lot more with the, um, different, different christian traditions that have come into the

United States since 1965. The United States is now both the biggest missionary sending country and the biggest missionary receiving country. A lot of that has to do with the changing transnational dynamics following, um, that change in immigration as well as advances in transportation. Right. It's just much easier to get back and forth from places, whereas when immigrants came in the 1880s, it was really hard to

get passage to the United States. And once you got here, you maybe were never going to go back to the home country. So that could have been a turning point. I, um, had thought, well, how could I? Because I really wanted to talk about, um, a lot of black civil rights activism and the Birmingham church bombing in the 1960s. So part of that was just a timeline issue. How could I have a chapter on 1963 and a chapter on 1965? It would just get too bunched up. So I guess those would

be the two things. Um, and again, they're mentioned by him. That would be good contenders. And when I taught his church history text, turning points in church history, um, in an undergrad setting, that was the student's final assignment. Pick a turning point. Pick something that could have been a turning point and wasn't and not write a full fledged chapter on it, but follow the format of the book as well as you can and make a case for why that was

a turning point. Um, and I think that that would be a great exercise for anyone who wants to use my book in an educational. Just talk about it or as a written project, because, yeah, there's always going to be other contenders and then just test out my framework. Um, can you use this framework to make a case for a different event as a turning point?

>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah. And I got to ask, maybe now that we're on this train of thought, like, what any events, if you had to pick one event to be a turning point post Reagan, like, what would that event be? Would it be Covid? Would it be 911? Those, um, are two, of course, that come to mind. >> Elesha: First, for me, so much depends on where we're still going,

right? In my own personal life and scholarly career, it was the election of Donald Trump in 2016, although you can see that very much as in the same trajectory as the election of Ronald Reagan. And I talk some about that at the end of the last chapter of this book, chapter 13. But the question remaining for all of us is, are we still on that trajectory? Are we still on, um,

almost a collapsing of categories in the United States, Christian equals conservative, largely, but not exclusively white Republican. Or is that wave breaking? Um. And there's strong social science work saying that the rise of the nuns, n o n e s people who, Americans who do not affiliate with religion, was strongly affected by the, um, election of Trump and the collapsing of religious and political categories.

If the United States, which had been diverging from the trend in Europe of decreasing christian affiliation and, um, and membership, like throughout the 20th century, Europe got less and less christian, by any measure, and the United States pretty much bucked that trend. We modernized technologically, we had a strong economy, we had a lot in common with Europe, but that was different. We had high

religious adherence, and they didnt. Maybe we are now going to be on that strongly dechristianizing trajectory. And if 2016 is an inflection point there, then I think you could make that argument. But it remains to be seen if thats whats going happen or not. >> Loren: Yeah, again, I think you said this early on, right? Basically that history, at least as I interpreted your answer, like, history is about learning from the past to

let it inform your present. Because I'm just thinking about your point you made about the hart cellar act, about the immigration reform and, uh, nativism in the past. It, uh, seems like we're kind of getting a replay of that, right? With nativist tendencies, wanting stricter border controls. And as we'll get into here in chapter eight, this is kind of what I'm wanting to talk more about, chapter eight. I think in many ways, we're seeing that struggle, divisiveness play out again.

So why don't you introduce chapter eight, and then we'll kind of dive in a little bit more. >> Elesha: Sure. So, in my, uh, format, chapter eight is the Civil War chapter. I mentioned I didn't have a revolutionary war chapter. I do have a civil war chapter, and it's specifically a little bit before the civil war, 1844. And this was when the Methodist church split over slavery. Split sectionally, north south. Um, the presenting event was a question about a bishop

who was also an enslaver. And from the beginning of the Methodist wesleyan tradition, John Wesley. John Wesley was notable in his day for saying, slavery is wrong. It's just wrong. You cannot be a Christian and engage in that. And the Methodist tradition in the United States from the beginning was like, yeah, we are following the founder of Methodism. We're not going to have

slavery. And they changed position on that within a matter of months because being against enslavement was just really unpopular, particularly in the south, where the Methodist movement was making a lot of,

um, experiencing a lot of growth. And so there on the ground, the church leaders had to decide, well, do we want to be able to evangelize white enslavers and also other white Americans who didn't own slaves, but who were part of that economic system, who had those same racial biases, or do we want to limit ourselves and say, we're against slavery, and so we will be small and wildly unpopular? So they chose the path of church growth and ended up with a lot of enslavers among their members and

denominational leaders. But there were other members of the church who said, we can't sell out on this. Yeah, Wesley was against it. As we read the Bible, we're against it. Absolute hard. No. That becomes, um, a fight within the church at their assembly. And, um, a majority said this particular bishop, James Osgood. Nandra. Nope, you can't be a bishop and an enslaver. Um, if you want to keep your slaves, you can't be a bishop

anymore. And so then some Methodist churches split off to the Methodist church south, saying, we will be the Methodist church that allows slavery, and then the Methodist church north is the one that doesn't. And that's a precursor to other sectional divisions that are going to come up later. Other protestant denominations split, obviously, the political parties, the states themselves split.

>> Loren: And. >> Elesha: And this, um, becomes debates that are settled on the battlefield, not in general assemblies or in the legislator legislation. >> Loren: Yeah. So on page 155, you write, and I'm going to summarize here, that this issue, slavery for some people within church, was, like you said, crystal clear. For John Wesley, it was crystal clear. It's morally imperative, but struck others as divisive, distracting threat to evangelism, m and church

growth. You quote historian Donald Matthews saying, the Methodist church would, uh, have to make the choice between purity and popularity. So when I first read this chapter, of course, what came to mind for me was just the LGBTQ division within. Within the last 20 years, within mainline Protestantism, again, interestingly enough, most recently in the Methodist churches of what? Like last summer. Right.

But as you were talking, even then, I thought about widening this conversation out to even evangelicals in today, or at least again, our current context. When we think about racism, whether it be racism in, uh, evangelical circles or LGBTQ affirming in mainline circles, it seems like there's the same struggle of, like, do we want to be morally pure, or do we want to be, quote unquote, focus on church growth and think that these are issues that are, again, a threat to evangelism?

>> Elesha: Yes. Um, I've come to a couple of strong leanings. I won't call them conclusions necessarily. When I was learning church history, not so much american church history, but the early and medieval, the reformation,

the stuff that I haven't studied as deeply. But when I was ta'ing those classes at Duke divinity, the big church conflicts of the past, um, especially if you're taking these classes from historical theologians, are described in terms of theology like, they split over the Filioquet clause or they split over this particular interpretation of whether there's real presence in the Eucharist as an american church historian, where the marquee rupture is this one over enslavement? Yeah,

narrowly. If you were to read the documents from Methodist church history, this is about a church order question and who gets to be a bishop and who gets to weigh in on who gets to be a bishop. But come on, let's be honest. This is about enslavement, this is about economics, and this is about

racism. And then I started to wonder, I. What if all of the church splits were actually about things with political and economic salience that not just a handful of theologians arguing in Latin cared about, but affected a lot of people? So that's now my suspicion. Anytime I'm hearing another church historian talk about another church split in a conference or something, I'm always the one raising my hand saying, did you consider economic reasons? Maybe you're. Maybe you're totally

right. Maybe it was just about this latin stuff, but I'm suspicious. Um, the other thing I would say about what seemed to be the problem, what was really the problem? Why is this a problem for churches? In a later chapter in the book, the one on the 16th Street Baptist church bombing in Birmingham, 1963. So this is a civil,

big civil rights chapter. I really wanted to include long quotations from, um, Martin Luther King junior s letter from a Birmingham jail where he calls out the white moderates, that the white moderates are always more devoted to order than justice.

Um, here I'm quoting, who prefers a negative piece, which is the absence of tension, to a positive peace, which is the presence of justice, who constantly says, I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action, who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom. That is the interpretation that I then use when I'm, um, looking at the documents from the mid 18 hundreds and considering

this civil war stuff. Yes, churchmen are going to talk about evangelism and church growth and purity, whatever they say. I hear them as being just white moderates who just want to keep things the way they are because that's working fine for them. >> Loren: Yeah, that's interesting to think about. So, uh, a page over, basically, you write about how these divisive or in the context of 1840s, this issue over slavery, became a navigable

impasse. I'm not going to read the full quote here, um, but again, to bring it modern day, current day, again in mainline context, whether it was the Episcopalians, the Presbyterians, the Methodists. Again, we were talking about my denomination, christian church, disciples of Christ were so small that we sort of had many split. It was more splintering and individual congregations peeling off.

That's certainly happening. It just became a navigable impasse. Um, and then I think in some ways, you can correct me if you disagree, but I think we're seeing that in evangelicalism, right, where it's becoming a navigable impasse. And I'm wondering. I was going to ask this question later, but I want to ask. I remember talking, uh, a couple years ago with a guy I worked with as a chaplain who was PCUSA, but certainly on the more conservative side of the PC USA.

And somehow we got talking about this issue of lgbt inclusion, and he said, it's not about lgbt inclusion, it's something. I can't remember the words he used exactly, but it was basically about, like, this is about biblical authority or something to

that sense. And you write about in 165, uh, on 165, I don't know if I can find the full quote here, but basically this idea that, like, for slavery, there was this difference of interpretation of scripture really became a big issue of the pro slavery, a literal reading of people had slaves in the Bible and so on. And Paul didn't specifically condemn what onesimus. Right. His philemon. Um, whatever. Um, folks can

correct me which one I'm remembering. Uh, and then, of course, on the other side, the anti slavery people like, well, read the scope of scripture, read the broad themes of scripture, and that same thing plays out today, especially, I think, within lgbt inclusion. This idea of, oh, well, chapter and verse, even though obviously there's been some work done, like I'm thinking on my bookshelf here from Matthew Vines and then

Martin, um, Dale Martin. Two ones that come to mind is folks who've tried to look at the text and critique the text and say, hey, that's not actually what the text text says. But then again, even if I think from my understanding, if folks are not going to take that vein, they'll tell you, hey, look at the broad scope of scripture. The Bible and God's gospel leans toward inclusivity. So again, it gets into the same kind of dichotomy. So I'm just curious, how does that. Is there any way past that

impasse of that? What I think is kind of fundamental, like how we interpret scripture and how we approach the Bible? >> Elesha: I don't know that there is, um. I'm sorry if that was not the answer that you wanted. >> Loren: No, I think it's honest. I was hoping I was wrong. Hoping there was a way through. >> Elesha: Yeah. The civil war. This is another chapter where I'm leaning heavily on the work of Mark Noel and one of his many, many books. That's one of my favorites,

is the. The civil war as a theological crisis. >> Loren: Yeah. >> Elesha: So something I read early on in grad school, and it was really eye opening for me that among other crises of the civil war, it was a theological crisis for american Protestants, because american Protestants in, uh, um, also a scottish common sense realism for philosophical and theological and sort of political cultural reasons.

Americans, uh, tend to have this fundamental sense that the Bible says what it means and means what it says. >> Loren: Mhm. >> Elesha: Okay, well, so then what do you do when the Bible seems to be meaning something really different to different people? >> Loren: Mhm. >> Elesha: There's no way past that. We don't have councils. We don't have a pope. We don't really look back to Creedde. Um, there is no other authority to

bring in. And the two big schools of interpretation that, um, they weren't brand new at the middle of the 19th century, but they really came into focus, and they tended to be regional. Well, we're just taking literal verses, even if there's just one or two verses. Whatever seems to speak translation in the way that we look at it, whatever seems to speak most directly to the issue. That's the thing. That's the interpretive key that everything else

has to fall in line behind. Whereas the more northern and then would be liberal and eventually mainline tradition is, as you were saying, let's look at the scope of this. Let's historicize it. Maybe what was true in the ancient world is no longer true now, either because the context has changed or because we don't want it to be. We don't want to still be living in a society ordered the same way as the first century roman empire. And you're absolutely right that those

same big approaches. Are we looking at specific verses or are we looking at big context? Are we trying to replicate what we believe was true about the past versus. Are we engaged in a process where at some points, well, say, yeah, this isn't the way that christians did it before. And that's not just, okay,

that's better. Um, those are really different orientations to the text, to the church, to society, to what's going on in history, to what the role of either humans as co creators with God versus humans who have to recognize God's sovereignty above all, like, it affects everything. And some denominations find ways to accommodate both orientations. But they're so different in so many ways that as the united Methodist church has learned again, um, eventually it seems to break.

>> Loren: Yeah, I was looking back at my stack of books for somebody who. I can't remember his first name. Um, let's see if I can find it. I'm, uh, not. I may be getting this wrong. No, that's not it. Gupta, tell her story. Do you remember that first name of that author? I can't remember. >> Elesha: I'm afraid I don't.

>> Loren: Okay. I'm, um, just thinking of somebody who, um, tended to take a broader scope, I think is entrenched, is firmly, I think, identifies within the evangelical tradition, and kind of takes a broader perspective towards, for instance, women's roles in, um,

clergy and pastoral leadership. But, yeah, I think that's certainly a hard balance to get. And I'm not sure there's a lot of people who seem to be threading that needle. Well. >> Elesha: I first discovered this difference in orientation. Um, it was by accident. It was my undergrad New Testament class at Eton, and it was a female professor who ended up not

staying very long. Uh, I believe in part because she was working on ordination and I could tell from my fellow students that they thought it was just wrong that a woman would be ordained. She got a lot of friction from the student. And I was not personally in favor of women's ordination then either, because of the way that I'd been raised. But aside from that, we had an assignment in the class. Um, was paul for or against slavery?

>> Loren: Mhm. >> Elesha: And we were supposed to be looking at the text, and this is like a freshman sophomore level class. I. Now, we had no business doing that, but that was the assignment. And my group, like, we were looking at the verses like, well, he's for it. And, like, I think you were allowed to make the case either

way. And the exercise was about making the case. But it was clear after my group's presentation that according, like, in the professor's eyes, we had gotten it wrong. I was like, but that's what it says. And it took years more study for me to understand why. Why we. Why my group came to the conclusion that it did, why somebody else would see that it's wrong. Um, but there really isn't a way to be both on enslavement. Not politically, not economically, um, not biblically either. Yes or no?

>> Loren: Yeah, I want to give. I found the title, uh, again, still could be saying this wrong. Naj k. Gupta. Tell her story. How women led, taught, administered in the elder church. Um, but let's. Let's get. So I think where this is all interesting, for me, at least, is where I. Some further down in the chapter you write about, um, or I guess it's. Harry Stout makes the point about clergy being virtually cheerleaders, and then churches become

ideological bunkers. And I guess I want to preface this very cautiously or carefully by saying, I definitely understand in some context where people need to be in a. In a context that's safe for them. Like, you talk about your female professor, right? I can totally understand why she would want to leave. I wouldn't want to be somewhere where folks were hostile against what I was looking for. So I definitely want to respect that, especially for

lgbt folks, for people, uh, of color. I don't want to make assumptions that folks need to just tough it out. Um, that's certainly unfair for me to ask. I think it does. There also is, like a. The dynamic of that fully played out is, like you say, like, churches become ideological bunkers. And certainly we saw that right during COVID where there are all these churches growing, because they're basically like, no masks, no Covid shots. Um, and, ah, we're still seeing this. I think today of some

clergy becoming a cheerleaders. Like, certainly we could caricature someone like Robert Jeffers as that. And I think in my own mainline tradition, I don't want to get in trouble, but sometimes clergy can behave in that same vein to some extent. So what are your thoughts there? >> Elesha: Oh, my goodness. Ah, yeah, Covid, that was a tough one. Um, many times in my life, I've been glad that I was not a clergy person trying to lead a church. Um, that's just a really hard kind

of job. Um, you're accountable to people in ways that there's some similarities to being a professor, and then there's some ways that it's really different. Um, I can make my students very angry, and they can roast me on evaluations. I have tenure. Um, they can't oust me in the way that a, ah, rebellion can oust a pastor or can. And, like, I have students for a semester, not multi generation lifetime. Just the stakes are so

different. Um, on the reference to Harry Stout's book, um, that was upon the altar of the. A moral history of the civil war that came out when I was in grad school. School. And my first impression of it was like, he's overstating this. Like, he talked about how the civil war, as it went on, as the casualties mounted,

that there was just this, um, total war mentality that seizes both sides. They're raising the stakes cosmically. Um, and they just. They can't get out of this frenzy of supporting their side at all costs. And I thought, that's a little histrionic, isn't it? No, m. No, now I've seen it more. He wrote that in 2006, and things have happened since then. Um, it is a perpetual danger, not just in the church, but in humanity. Right? Like, one of the things this, uh, is going to get, like, very

high level. But one of the things I wonder, as a church historian who's now also written a book about an anthropologist, Margaret Mead, some of the, um, intractable conflicts and, um, tensions and fights that we see in the church. I wonder, is this a church thing or is this a human thing? Is it somehow especially religious or christian to have this frenzied pitch of everything is at stake in this world and the next? Is

it. Is it some kind of church dysfunction that is causing that level of social dysfunction? Or in what way is it just. No. Humans are like that. Um, humans divide the world into us and them on various axes. And once there's a conflict that, especially your life or your son's life is on the line. Um, a sort of rational, detached. I can see both sides of it. Part of the brain shuts off, right? And the it's my way, must win

kicks in. Um, my own sort of way of understanding that the world was also heavily influenced by reading some Reinhold Niebuhr in grad school, moral man in immoral society. Um, so there's a certain. I don't know, I have a certain fatalism almost about, like, humans gonna human. Um. It is human nature to pick fights and raise stakes and become unable to hear the

other side. So then, as a church historian, one of the things I'm wondering is, or I'm looking for is, where is Christianity as institutional, church, as doctrine, as text, as practice, either helping humans move out of this very self centered way of being in the world? Is religion helping or making it worse? Yeah, if it is essentially human to prefer yourself, your kin, your people, like you, people on your side,

prefer that to the other. If that is just fundamentally human, is religion making that better or worse? And definitely in the civil war, it made it worse. >> Loren: Are there any examples of. To use the opposite, are there any examples you can think of that might apply for day of religion making it better? >> Elesha: I think that, um, there's certainly some work on global exchanges, um, an increase in a cosmopolitan outlook.

And I don't just mean, like, fancy New York or something, but like David Holinger and my, uh, graduate advisor, Grant Wacker, writing on the missionary impulse, how often missionaries would go from the west, particularly, um, these are historians of the US thinking they had all the answers and they would go to some other place and realize, wow, these other people have really different ideas and practices than I do, and they're not all wrong, and maybe some of mine are wrong.

And, um, developing more of a sense of, there's many ways to live in the world, there's many ways to live a good life, there's many ways to be faithful in the world. The missionary enterprise doesn't always work that way. Sometimes there's just a lot of cultural imperialism, but sometimes there is an openness there. Um, churches that have navigated LGBTQ inclusion, um, not just retrenched away from it. There

is a lot of growth in a lot of those. I don't mean numerical growth, sadly, but personal, um, theological growth. Um, I am someone who has changed my views on the. Almost everything from my childhood to now for a. For a variety of reasons. Still a Christian, but attending a very different kind of church. Um, spaces where people have changed are inspiring to me. And you can find those. Those congregations.

And often it is. Maybe it wasn't LGBTQ, maybe it was a, ah, church, a, um, building program or a new ministry or a new minister or something that required people together to work through change, um, and recognize that their way is not the only way. And maybe there are things, aspects of their own belief and identity that they can give on. Um, that's really inspiring to find and be in those spaces. >> Loren: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. Something else, I think, that stuck out to me from

this chapter. You write that the raptures, or, excuse me, the ruptures of the 19th, mid 19th century permanently disfigured both the nation and protestant theology. Uh, again, depending on how much you want to share on this. But I'm curious, like, what are some examples of that? Certainly, then, and I'm curious, like, how are those ruptures still playing out or still evidence today?

>> Elesha: Yeah, certainly. Um, within churches and theology, one of the questions in american religious history in my field is mostly 20th century. Like the fundamentalist modernist. >> Loren: Sure, sure. >> Elesha: And that gets pegged usually later, 19, uh, twenties. I do have a chapter on the scopes trial, but along with Mark

Knoll, uh, civil war is a theological crisis. I really do date it earlier than that, because at the fundamentalist modernist crisis, it's still some people wanting to take certain Bible verses literally versus other people being more open to insights from outside Christianity, um, science and linguistics, and seeing the big picture and being okay with change in society. Um, so again, like we keep saying, it's such a difference in orientation.

Um, and probably there are scholars whose expertise is in an earlier chronological period. He would tell me, no, it wasn't even the civil war. It was before that, that the. Let's look at the big picture versus. Let's look at the specific versus stuff. Um, but as far back as I know how to look as a 20th century person, um, that's sort of what I meant by the permanent rupture. We still can't figure out. Maybe there isn't a way to go from one side of that divide to the other. Uh,

politically. I mean, look at an electoral map now. Um, the political. The party alignment is different. I mean, the Republicans were the party of Lincoln. They were the party of Reconstruction and black liberation once upon a time. Every time I tell my undergraduate students that, it just blows their minds. And then I have to explain the southern strategy and why. Basically there was this big group of white racists who were electorally up for grabs, and they were

Democrats for a really long time. And now they're not. And are they still fighting about enslavement? Not exactly. Are they still flying confederate flags? >> Loren: Yes, they are. Yeah. >> Elesha: So we're past it somewhat and also not at all. >> Loren: Okay. I was intrigued by this when your chapter. I'm getting off topic here a little bit, but your chapter on that, um, the controversy, the scopes controversy in seminary, I wrote a paper on, um, what's his name?

Who's the. Who's the guy I'm blanking on who was, uh, against the evolution? >> Elesha: Oh, lots of them. >> Loren: Now, who was the lead. Who's the lead lawyer? >> Elesha: William Jennings Bryan. >> Loren: Thank you. Yeah, I told you not, uh, today, Brian. I wrote like a pro William Jennings Bryan paper. So I actually was kind of sympathetic toward him and think he gets unfairly painted now as this really concerted. I guess Bob Jones has a William Jennings Bryan house or

building or something. I'm like, he's not really fits in modern fundamental christianity. I don't think he was kind of a populist. He was against social darwinism, at least as I understood in my fair. In that assessment. >> Elesha: He was a super complicated guy. Right. He had a long political career. He was never as successful as he wanted to be in a political career. Um, yeah, some of the things that he, um, championed about voting rights and some foreign policy

stuff. Yeah. He would seem. Workers, uh, rights, we would now code as progressive. And then there were other positions that he took that were. And he wasn't always as stridently anti evolution. And even, even to the end, he wasn't as stridently anti evolution. I include here that, um, supposedly the quote that he said, the rock of ages is more important than the age of rocks. That's from a movie. That's not from him. He wasn't that closed minded. He became, both to his enemies and to his fans,

caricatured that way. He was always more nuanced than that. Um, but this is also very early. 19 hundreds period. Um, and Bryan's career spanned the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century. DL Moody would be another figure who. Some of the things that he did, especially in terms of urban ministry, we would now think of as progressive. Other things he did, um, about biblical interpretation and evangelism, we would code as very conservative. It was not as clear then

as it would become. I believe it was the first cover the magazine, the christian century, the sort of flagship of the protestant main line that we were chatting about a little bit before. Started as a disciples of Christ publication, the Christian Oracle, when they renamed it the christian century. I believe it was the very first cover with that new name had a picture of DL Moody. >> Loren: Interesting.

>> Elesha: He was still. He could be, he was a Chicago figure and the magazine was published in Chicago and he was of national importance, so that was part of it. But these figures could not be pegged as neatly boxed, as neatly, um, at that period as they would be after the scopes trial or after some of the battles of the neo evangelicals in the 1940s, or after civil rights in the sixties, or now after LGBTQ.

As with the political parties and the southern strategy that I mentioned, categories can be somewhat in flux. People can move in and out of them or have historically stances that fit within and stances that did not. >> Loren: Yeah, yeah. Um, we need to move on here for the sake of time. But I'm thinking like your, I'm thinking about your point from the beginning about theological issues often being like cultural or economic issues. I'm like, I guess that James Carville. It is the economy.

Stupid quote might ring a bell here. >> Elesha: Political power. >> Loren: Yeah. >> Elesha: Um, there, there. I don't think have ever been. I, uh, have to asterisk this because part of this is a bias from looking back from our own historical period. I find it hard to believe that there were people in the past that cared that much about a clause in a creed or a.

Exactly how was the real presence in the Eucharist? Like, I just have a hard time understanding how a large number of people could ever have understood enough about that to have cared enough about it, to have fought a war or split a church or killed a bishop or something like, it seems to me there must have been something else going on, but maybe things were really more important. Like, the past is a foreign country is a

quote that we often use. I shouldnt assume that whats important to me and people around me was necessarily what was most important to people in the past. Theres a book that I encountered in, um, not graduate school. It was sent to me for review at Christian History magazine, which we didnt actually have a book review section, but I would sometimes review books in the email newsletter because I was expected to produce a newsletter every week and I had to come up with something to

say. Tia Cul Baba's the byzantine lists. So this is about a field that I have no deep training in at all, and I certainly didn't then before I had done any graduate work. But she was looking at these lists, the errors of the Latins. These were lists generated in the byzantine eastern church sort of crusades era. And one of the things that she pointed out was that the things you would expect to be problems between east and west at this

period. If you look at the documents from the eastern folks, what they were actually mad about, or at least what they said on these documents they were mad about, is not what you would expect at all. It was like they used the wrong bread in the Eucharist and they grow beards and they celebrate Easter on the wrong day, and they sometimes kiss the rings of their. It wasn't just the Filioque clause. It also wasn't like there are geopolitical problems and they are waging war on us. It was

beards. And so that. That always serves as a check for me when I'm assuming people in the past, like, surely I can understand what they cared about because humans gonna human right or maybe not. Or maybe they really did care about things. Like things were super important to them that seem completely trivial to me now. Um, I at least need to admit that possibility when I'm trying to figure out what was going on in the past.

>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing that wisdom there, and, uh, I wish we had more time because I feel like I could keep engaging you here for a while with this, but the book is turning points in american church history. How pivotal events shaped a nation and a faith. Is there anything else you want to say about the book before we take a break? >> Elesha: Anything. One other thing I took from Mark Noel. In the format, every chapter begins with a hymn text and

every chapter ends with a prayer. And I hope people enjoy those, because sometimes those took me as long to find as the whole rest of the chapter. >> Loren: That's right. I was gonna ask you, like, what would, uh. Yeah, that was actually one of my favorite things about the book. I was like, what would be, like, the. The praise and worship song that you would take for, like, if we had to write like a. If you'd write a chapter on, like, 2016. Like, I feel like. Who. How do you say his name?

Sean Fuch. Like, I feel like he would. One of his songs would have to make it in there, right? >> Elesha: Like, I. Yeah, I don't really do praise and worship, so I wouldn't know. But, uh, also, fun fact. One reason that I didn't use a. >> Loren: Praise and way maker, that would be the song. >> Elesha: I would say, um, those are copyrighted. And I could. >> Loren: That's true. That is true. Which again, is. >> Elesha: So I had. I had to dig out, um, God of

our fathers for chapter 13 because I can't remember now. I had another song that was more in the praise and worship vein, and I was denied permission to use it. >> Loren: Interesting. Come on, people, play along. It's important for the book. Well, let's take a break and we'll come back with some closing questions. All right, we're back with doctor Elesha Coffman So thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate the

conversation. I do recommend the book. I really nerded out reading this, and I thought chapter eight especially was really kind of chilling in many ways, but also enlightening. Um, a lot of great chapters, I thought, like the one you mentioned or one about the, um, American Bible society founded. What was that chapter? >> Elesha: Um, I think that's seven. >> Loren: The, uh, christian empire, essentially the benevolent empire. I thought that

was a really interesting chapter, too. So a lot of good stuff in the book. Some m closing questions we'll go through here again, you can take these as seriously or not as you'd like to if you're pope for a day. Anything, anything, uh, you want to do there. >> Elesha: So just to try to change the catholic church or are we imagining that the pope is actually a unified global church? >> Loren: Hey, this is. You're the pope. You can imagine it. Uh, how you want. My co host, Martha

Tarnick, she said this to a guest recently. If you could wave a magic wanda or the papal scepter, I suppose, what would you accomplish? >> Elesha: Yeah, this would, um, women's ordination. >> Loren: Okay. >> Elesha: That's one of many things that I changed my own mind about. And for reasons, um, both academic and personal, I went from thinking that I would not attend a church that had a female pastor to only attending a

church with female pastoral staff. It's that important to me. >> Loren: Okay, good. Uh, theologian or historical christian figure you'd want to meet or bring back to life? >> Elesha: This one is maybe off the grid. Uh, Dorothy sayers, um, she did some theological and translation work. She has some really interesting writing about, um, women are women. Human, I think, is one of her essays. Um, she was one of the inklings with Cs Lewis and Tolkien. She's kind of at the edge of that

group. So british writer, but also the best writer of sort of golden age of mystery books, the lord Peter Wimsy books. I love all of her mystery books. So I would just like to talk to her about everything. >> Loren: Okay, good. Um, what do you think? I guess. I guess maybe this. I'm going to cheat here, because I can. If you had to, like, write again our current time and context as a chapter, like, what would you title that chapter? Putting your really on the spot here.

>> Elesha: Yeah. Um, it might be something like the rise of the nuns. N o n e s. Um, that's something that sociology, like, I would have stolen that from sociologists, which is pretty much what happens when you're doing historical work and moving up toward the present. Um, the, you're engaging more with sociology, political science disciplines. Um, that when I get called in on a sociology dissertation, they're like, well, I hate to cite this. It's all the way from, you know,

like, 2012. I'm like, dude, I'm using documents from the 16th century. You can't scare me with 2012. So the social scientists are better on the recent past, and they've been talking about the rise of the nuns for several years now and speculating that probably we've hit a tipping point. Um, that that is, by certain measures, is already the largest, quote unquote, religious category in the United States. Um, that isn't totally new.

Um, you don't have to go back any more than the late 18 hundreds to have the same levels of irreligiosity. Americans forget that we think we've always been religious until, like, last Tuesday. No, it was a rise and fall of church affiliation. Um, so probably, probably that rise of the nuns. >> Loren: Okay. What would you hope for the future of Christianity? >> Elesha: Stop doing so much damage.

>> Loren: I guess it goes back to what you said, religion making it better or worse, right? >> Elesha: Yeah. Yeah. What is it that humans, as humans, have a tendency to. What kind of pain do we inflict on each other, and how can churches help us grow beyond that and also take better care of the survivors? >> Loren: Well, we're 50 some minutes in here, and I want to keep asking you questions, but I want to respect your time. It's lunchtime in my neck of the world, so I'm

getting hungry. Where can, uh, people connect with you in your work? >> Elesha: I don't do a lot of social media. Um, certainly you can find out about what I'm doing at the Baylor history department. That's my home department. Um, sometimes I'll write journalism as well as historical work, but probably my faculty page at Baylor would be the best place. >> Loren: And is there a title for the new book yet?

>> Elesha: Uh, the working title, as I'm applying for grant funding to do more research, is making religion news history, um, of the religion news service. >> Loren: Okay, well, the book we talked about today is turning points in american church history. Uh, I'm going to have to track down the book on the christian century and then hopefully have you back for that and then be on the lookout for her new book. Is there a time estimate yet?

>> Elesha: Oh, no, this one. Um, the archive is 620 some unprocessed boxes. >> Loren: Okay. Wow. Okay, well, keep an eye out. Well, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate the conversation. I hope it's helpful for our listeners. I certainly found it engaging. So always leave folks with the word of peace. So may God's peace be with you. >> Elesha: That's great. Great word. >> Loren Richmond: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian podcast.

The future Christian podcast is produced by Resonate Media. We love to hear from our listeners with questions, comments, and ideas for future episodes. Visit our website at, uh, future dash Christian.com and find the connect with us form at the bottom of the page to get in touch with Martha or Loren. But before you go, do us a favor. Subscribe to the pod to leave a review. It really helps us get this out to more people. Thanks. And go in peace.