Righting America

A forum for scholarly conversation about Christianity, culture, and politics in the US
Emily Hunter McGowin | Righting America

Institutional Religion: A Protestant Story

by Margaret Bendroth One thing that the #MeToo movement and the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings have made blindingly clear is that sexual harassment/abuse is not simply or even primarily a matter of abusive individuals. Instead, it is very much about institutions – be they...

Complementarianism, Rich Fundamentalists, and #SBCMeToo

With the May 2018 firing of Paige Patterson as president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) the #MeToo movement hit the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) full force. But in response a group of wealthy donors –  pledging their “absolute and...

Southern Baptist Fundamentalists Strike Back!

by William Trollinger It appears the battle in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is just beginning. And that is not a surprise. At the most recent SBC convention in Dallas the moderate (or, somewhat less conservative) forces seemed to have carried the day, with...

The Pain Wrought by Complementarian Theology

by Margaret Bendroth Today’s post is by Margaret Bendroth, executive director of the Congregational Library and Archives in Boston, and a historian of American religion. Her books include Fundamentalism and Gender, 1875 to the Present (Yale 1993) and Women and...

It’s Not about Paige Patterson, Continued: Sex and Gender Beyond Evangelicalism

by Elesha Coffman Today’s post is written by Elesha Coffman, assistant professor of history at Baylor University and author of The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (Oxford). She is a graduate of Wheaton College and Duke University. First off,...