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Daniel Silliman Profile picture
Daniel Silliman
@danielsilliman
Journalist. Historian. Church deacon. Lives on a tiny farm in Appalachia.
Apr 4, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
As I prepare for Easter this week, a fragment of a 14th- or 15th-century Latin poem has been rattling around my brain: “Quaerit amor Christi multos dum regnat iniquus.”

(A thread) In English, it says: “The love of Christ seeks many while injustice reigns.”
Jan 8, 2023 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
An interesting morning panel at #ASCH23 Image Jan Volek starts with a story about a tailor and his apprentice making a cloak in 16th c. Bohemia. They had a fight and the tailor killed his apprentice. He was ordered to build a shrine with a baptismal font #ASCH23
Jan 7, 2023 • 27 tweets • 3 min read
First panel of my day: Church Kids and Cacophonous Prayers: Children as Agents in American Religious Culture #ASCH23 Ambre Dromgoole from Yale on sanctified girlhood, starts with scene setting narrative about Jubilee Harmonizers #ASCH23
Sep 29, 2021 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
One year ago today, we published this at @CTmagazine
christianitytoday.com/news/2020/sept… It’s been a year.
Dec 11, 2020 • 19 tweets • 4 min read
Fifty years ago today, my dad accepted Jesus.

He was a 21-year-old drug dealer who had *just* stolen 2,000 pounds of marijuana and the money to pay for 2,000 pounds of marijuana. Instead of doing the deal, he'd decided to split.

Then he had a run-in with some Christians. A story/thread for Friday afternoon ...

As my father told it to me ...
Nov 6, 2020 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Since it looks like Stacey Abrams and company may have pushed Georgia blue last night, a little thread on the religious history behind her historic organizing effort.

File this under “the religious roots of the progressive movement,” h/t @jackjenkins When Abrams ran for governor in 2018, she came to national attention because of her organizing. After years of Democratic recriminations for failures to do outreach or motivate the base, Abrams just went to work. There’s a black church history there … christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/octobe…
Aug 25, 2020 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
I wonder if Jerry Falwell is thinking about Jim Bakker today.

He is making me think about Jim Bakker today.

A history thread: Falwell, like Bakker, said his wife’s infidelity was the problem, shifting blame to the spouse.

Falwell, like Bakker, claimed he was caught in a blackmail plot.
Jan 4, 2020 • 40 tweets • 18 min read
My first sessions of #ASCH20: First up, Shannen Dee Williams, from Villanova, on black Catholic teenagers and the desegregation struggle after WWII #ASCH20
Dec 17, 2019 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
It WAS the peanut farmer. @CTmagazine ran a full-page ad for Jimmy Carter in July 76 that said a born-again president could return the country to decency. @CTmagazine The ad was paid for by Citizens for Carter.
Aug 9, 2019 • 32 tweets • 5 min read
Just catching up with this @kevinkruse article on George Wallace and it reminds me of a story I found in the Wheaton archives about George Wallace and Billy Graham. nytimes.com/2019/07/28/opi… It’s really a story about white evangelicals and the temptations of politics. A lot of stories about Wallace are about political temptation.
May 8, 2019 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
I don’t know if all the dots connect in this developing story of the Jerry Falwell Jr. scandal (or scandals?)

But it would be helpful, at least, to know what all the dots *are*. Let’s do a timeline. Here’s what has been reported:
Mar 2, 2019 • 53 tweets • 7 min read
This morning at the Midwest American Academy of Religion: Fractured Methodisms, giving a historical overview, with @broke_historian, Gregory R. Coates, Thomas Grinter and Diane H. Lobody. Gregory Coates: This is timely. Hopefully we can glean some knowledge from the past.
Jan 5, 2019 • 39 tweets • 17 min read
I'm running late and missed the first presentation, but I'm now at: Campaigning for the Lord's Kingdom: Evangelical Political Loyalties and Legacies in Late 20th-Century America #AHA19 Allison Vander Broek, from Boston College: I want to explain how right-to-life movement recruited evangelicals. 1 worked to resolve tensions with Catholics. 2 made movement broad, welcoming to all faiths. 3 acted on belief evangelicals were allies, just didn't realize it #AHA19
Jan 5, 2019 • 65 tweets • 34 min read
Next up: #AHA19 .@MalcolmBFoley: Race is fraught in the tradition called evangelicalism. By that I mean, people don't like seriously talking about. #AHA19
May 31, 2018 • 22 tweets • 4 min read
I'm guessing they didn't think about how this would sound apnews.com/dc47bd30b2574a… This is a silly story from the @ap, but it reminds me of a historical mystery I never solved. Maybe someone wants to take a crack at it (thread).
May 16, 2018 • 18 tweets • 3 min read
For an example of *how* fuzzy the division is between segregationists-fundamentalists and not-racist-evangelicals, see W.A. Criswell (thread). Criswell, as @ThomasSKidd knows, was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, a major influence in the Southern Baptist Church. He was Billy Graham’s official pastor. He was a contributing editor to Christianity Today. He was also an adamant segregationist.