In the 1890s, Louis Klopsch’s popular newspaper, the Christian Herald, insisted that philanthropy was not only for the elite, but was a duty for everyday citizens. This post for the Smithsonian’s What It Means to Be American series describes his long-lasting influence on the practice of charity in the United States.
In this short piece for the Conversation, published in observance of the United Nations’ International Day of Charity, I explain how a popular 19th century Christian newspaper used media technologies to publicize humanitarian crises and encourage Americans to donate millions toward international aid efforts.
Rather than continuing to conjecture about Trump’s most faithful constituency, what if observers of contemporary American Christianity asked a different question? In this essay, for the Immanent Frame, I reflect on the importance of the global frame of Melani McAlister’s The Kingdom of God Has no Borders.
On September 2, 2015, the body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi washed up ashore near the Turkish resort of Bodrum. Within several days, a photograph of the lifeless toddler lying facedown on the beach made front-page headlines around the globe, sparking a wave of concern to address humanitarian crisis in Syria. In this post for HistPhil, I trace the power of such images to the 19th-century evangelical newspaper, the Christian Herald.
This post is my contribution to the States of the Union Project (where writers from around the country tell about where they discovered religion and politics in their states) for Religion & Politics, the online news journal of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, MO.