Mark Noll’s reliance on a reductive caricature of Protestant political theology causes him to give a false impression of how most colonial American Protestants deployed sacred and secular sources in their political thought. Continue Reading »
The Witches: Salem, 1692by stacy schifflittle, brown and company, 496 pages, $32Of all the catchphrases Americans employ in times of political crisis, “witch hunt” is perhaps the most unsettling. It casts opponents as evil, not merely wrong. Richard Hofstadter famously labeled this tendency in . . . . Continue Reading »
There’s little less fashionable today than praising the Puritans, especially for their egalitarian political idealism, their promotion of genuinely humane and liberating learning, and their capacity for enjoyment and human happiness. Praising the Puritans is especially difficult for us because . . . . Continue Reading »