History Commons^™

The Prospect Of Human Spiritual Unity Through The Cosmic Story, Philip Novak

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have noted that, “we seem to be moving beyond any religious expression so far known to the human into a meta-religious age that seems to be a new comprehensive context for all religions.” That “new comprehensive context” is of course now known as Big History -- a.k.a. the Evolutionary Epic, Universe Story, or New Cosmic Story—the astonishing contemporary synthesis of modern sciences that tells a coherent story of the evolution of the universe from the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago to the present.

Yet with the notable exception of the writings of Berry and …

Review: The Gene: An Intimate History. By Siddartha Mukherjee, Jordan Lieser

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of the highly regarded and Pulitzer Prize winning The Emperor of All Maladies, has undertaken what he terms as an “intimate history” of the gene. Mukherjee’s medical credentials are impressive, yet they are also atypical for research and writing on the history of science. The Gene is impeccably written and expands our understanding of a well-known history through his unique viewpoint. In fact, Mukherjee’s work is reminiscent of another Pulitzer Prize winner, Jared Diamond. Originally a physiologist, Diamond, is best known for applying his scientific viewpoint to the Spanish Conquest in his 1997 Pulitzer Prize winning …

Atoning For The Sins Of The Fatherland: The Gendered Nationalism Of The Ecumenical Sisterhood Of Mary, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In my book, Mothering the Fatherland, forthcoming from Oxford University Press, I analyze how the penitential practices of a group of Protestant nuns in Germany were rooted in their understanding of collective German national guilt in the aftermath of the Third Reich. Those with some prior familiarity with the group may know them as the Evangelical or Evangelische Sisterhood of Mary. I will refer to them throughout by their original name, the Ecumenical Sisterhood of Mary. While the book discusses the sisters’ gender and nationalism separately in the context of the sisters’ repentance and theology of collective national guilt, I …

Uprooting Where Others Sowed? Presbyterian And Moravian Missionaries In Russian Orthodox Alaska, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The arrival in Native Alaskan communities of Russians in the mid-18th century and Americans in the mid-19th century brought lasting change. What that change constituted is a matter of debate. This paper will attempt to look at multiple sides of the story, considering the perspectives of Russians and Americans, and, most importantly, that of the indigenous Alaskans themselves, as well as that of ethno-historians. By disentangling the layers of polemic and hagiography left by Presbyterian and Moravian missionaries, I will demonstrate their corrosive impact at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century on the cultures and …

Inverting The Eagle To Embrace The Star Of David: The Nationalist Roots Of German Christian Zionism, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

It is no secret that Christian Zionism in the U.S. has long been paired with American patriotism. Since at least as far back as William Blackstone’s 1891 “Memorial,” American Christian Zionists have proclaimed that their support of a Jewish homeland as bolstering their own country’s perceived privileged relationship with God. Less obvious is the link between German nationalism and Christian Zionism in that country in the period following World War II. Whereas American Christian Zionism has been marked by militarism and triumphalism, the German variant has been understandably penitential in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Nonetheless, this paper will demonstrate …

A Rabbi And Twelve-Hundred Missionaries Walk Into A Conference: Philo-Semitism And Anti-Semitism At Edinburgh, 1910, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Had a rabbi attended the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910, that rabbi’s ambivalence may have been equaled only by that of the delegates. This presentation will demonstrate how the conference’s first commission report expressed both philo- and anti-Semitism, affirming the value of the world’s Jewish population while portraying it as a threat. This juxtaposition reveals the conference as ahead of its time, in some regards, and an event rooted in the values of its time, in others.

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Lieser On Stevens, 'Radical L.A.: From Coxey's Army To The Watts Riots, 1894-1965', Jordan Lieser

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The city of Los Angeles can be a controversial and polarizing topic. In modern times, it has been criticized as a culturally shallow town filled with Hollywood starlets; however, at the same time, others praise the vast metropolis as a home for political, social, and cultural diversity. Errol Wayne Stevens, the former head of the Seaver Center for Western History Research at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, peels back the historical layers of Los Angeles in Radical L.A., presenting it as a battleground between staunch left- and rightwing coalitions. The very idea of chronicling radicalism is a difficult …

Trust, Repentance, And Apocalyptic Zionism: Basilea Schlink And The Evangelical Sisterhood Of Mary Respond To War, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Wars past, present, and future have shaped the development of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. Mother Basilea Schlink wrote that her sisterhood was “a child of the last war,” referring to the Second World War. Her vision for her sisterhood was equally shaped by the Cold War and by her expectations of the imminent nuclear world war that would usher in the Apocalypse. To these wars Mother Basilea and her sisterhood responded with a radical trust in God, daily individual and corporate repentance, and unwavering support for God’s Old Testament people, the Jews, and, by extension, the State of Israel. …

Prayer As Science In Early America, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Even Jesus might need more than a few days to resurrect Cotton Mather. After three centuries of public malediction for his apparent inconsistencies, moralism, political meddling, and perceived complicity in the Salem Witch Trials, his rehabilitation will be slow in coming if it comes at all. Lovelace’s American Pietism of Cotton Mather could have marked the beginning of a Mather renaissance, but now, thirty years after the fact, Lovelace’s work remains the most recent comprehensive study of Mather’s theology.

Lovelace suggests that Mather’s approach to piety was one of synthesis rather than of incongruity. While Lovelace applies this idea to …

Protestants Protesting Protestantism: 20th Century Experiments In Monasticism, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Contrary to popular belief, there have often been monastic sisterhoods and brotherhoods in Protestantism. In Germany, Möllenbeck, Loccum, and Marienberg all contained cloisters that embraced the Lutheran Reformation but retained much of their monastic practice. That such groups are relatively unknown may reflect the ambivalence of those in positions of power toward potential holdovers from Catholicism. Protestant monasticism has never been normative; therefore, its occurrence might best be understood as an implicit critique of the mainstream confessions. For the purposes of this paper I will not define monasticism as a vague and flexible lifestyle of contemplation and asceticism, as have …

The Evangelical Sisterhood Of Mary: Profile Of A Protestant Monastic Order, George Faithful

Collected Faculty and Staff Scholarship

It is not self-evident that there should be Protestant nuns. Yet the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary has existed in Germany for over sixty years. Why? How did the Sisterhood come to be? And what are the Sisters’ distinctive practices and beliefs? To answer these questions, I will provide a brief historical overview of the sisters’ founding, followed by a survey of the teachings of Mother Basilea, their preeminent founder, which I will augment with an analysis of the architecture of the sisters’ communities.

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