Year: 2023

Native Americas

I have a long standing interest in Native American studies, and issues. Back in 2004, I published a book called Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality. I have also followed avidly all the spectacular recent finds about the very early human settlement of the Americas. I have hugely enjoyed visits through the years…Continue Reading Native Americas

Kingdoms Of This World

I have been working for a while on the theme of empires, and their religious consequences. See also the related page at this site on American Empire Through History. My next book will be Kingdoms of This World: How Empires Have Made and Remade Religions (Baylor University Press, 2024). Here is the catalog description for…Continue Reading Kingdoms Of This World

American Empire in History

Much of my current work involves the theme of empire, and of empires, largely but not exclusively in a religious context. My forthcoming book is Kingdoms of This World: How Empires Have Made and Remade Religions (Baylor University Press, 2024). This argues that any scholar of religion really needs to know something about how empires…Continue Reading American Empire in History

Scientific Theories of Religious Belief and Behavior

This grows out of my work on Lived Religion, and is also something that I am currently writing on in several blogposts. I have compiled a working bibliography on the topic, which I offer here. It also relates at several points to separate material of mine on the theme of History and the Senses….Continue Reading Scientific Theories of Religious Belief and Behavior

Lived and Everyday Religion

What follows is somewhere between a think-piece and a scholarly agenda on the theme of Lived and Everyday Religion. It represents a set of ideas that I would like to work on, although presently, I am not too sure how, where or when. Through my research and writings through the years, I just keep coming…Continue Reading Lived and Everyday Religion

A Storm of Images

My most recent book book, A Storm of Images: Iconoclasm and Religious Reformation in the Byzantine World has just been published by Baylor University Press. Crawford Gribben interviewed me about the book for the New Books Network. I was interviewed on the topic of iconoclasm, and on Storm of Images, for the ABC Australia religion…Continue Reading A Storm of Images

Byzantium at Midnight

Through the years I have published on Eastern Christian traditions, most recently in my book A Storm of Images: Iconoclasm and Religious Reformation in the Byzantine World (Baylor University Press, 2023). I have been collecting material for other writing on the Late Byzantine period, and the diverse manifestations of the Byzantine inheritance through subsequent European history…Continue Reading Byzantium at Midnight

The Many Lives of Psalm 91

I recently published the book He Will Save You from the Deadly Pestilence: The Many Lives of Psalm 91 (Oxford University Press, 2023) Here is the book description from the cover material: Jews and Christians alike have made Psalm 91 one of the most commonly used and cited parts of the Bible. For over two…Continue Reading The Many Lives of Psalm 91