Perhaps no American community is as polemic as the Puritans. One of its biggest personalities was Cotton Mather, a New England minister whose life is largely remembered in connection with the Salem Witch Trials. But another key part of his legacy are his scientific interests, specifically Mather’s response to a smallpox outbreak in his community, one inspired by his slave Onesimus’s life story.
On this episode of Prayer amid Pandemic, Jan Stievermann professor the history of Christianity in the US at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies and faculty of theology, joined Prayer amid Pandemic to discuss how Mather tied the smallpox outbreak with God’s judgment, the nature of Onesimus and Mather’s relationship, and the larger societal tensions that Mather’s disease-fighting actions revealed.
Eva Sarsa, a ministry leader in Finland, offers this episode’s prayer.
Twenty years ago, Republicans, Democrats, evangelicals, gay activists, and African leaders joined forces to combat AIDS. Will their legacy survive today’s partisanship?
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Not everything that’s a sin is a crime—let alone one punishable by death.Français简体中文繁體中文
Twenty years ago, Republicans, Democrats, evangelicals, gay activists, and African leaders joined forces to combat AIDS. Will their legacy survive today’s partisanship?
As the COVID-19 emergency ends, the church can lead the world into a spirit of amnesty.
Presbyterians expect less fight and more fatigue as they gather following the Covenant shooting and the deaths of Harry Reeder and Tim Keller.
