In the fifth episode of Secondary Sources, co-hosts Prisca Bird and David McFarland interview Dr. Nadya Williams. In addition to discussing her book "Cultural Christians in the Early Church: A Historical and Practical Introduction to Christians in the Greco-Roman World" (Zondervan, 2023), this episode features candid discussion about the challenges and opportunities when navigating professional and personal commitments.

Secondary Sources is a podcast that seeks to connect scholars and secondary teachers who are both committed to the effective discipleship of students through compelling historical research and dynamic pedagogy. It is produced by secondary educators connected to The Conference on Faith & History.

Impious and amoral, petty and vindictive, Richard Nixon is not the typical protagonist of a religious biography. But spiritual drama is at the heart of this former president’s tragic story.

The night before his resignation, Richard Nixon wept—and prayed. Though his demanding parents had raised him Quaker, he wasn’t a regular churchgoer, nor was he quick to express vulnerability. As Henry Kissinger witnessed Nixon’s loneliness and humiliation that night, he remarked, “Can you imagine what this man would have been had somebody loved him?”

In this provocative and riveting biography, Daniel Silliman cuts to the heart of Nixon’s tragedy: Nixon wanted to be loved by God but couldn’t figure out how. This profound theological struggle underlay his successes and scandals, his turbulent political career, his history-changing victories, and his ultimate disgrace. As Silliman narrates the arc of his subject’s life and career, he connects Nixon’s character to religious influences in twentieth-century America—from Cold War Christianity to Chick tracts.

Silliman paints a nuanced spiritual portrait of the thirty-seventh president, just as he offers fresh insight into US political and religious history. Readers who lived through Watergate will discover a new perspective on an infamous controversy. A historical page-turner, One Lost Soul will surprise and absorb students, scholars, and anyone who likes a good story.

Enjoy a book talk with Dr. Daniel Silliman about his book, One Lost Soul: Richard Nixon’s Search for Salvation (Eerdmans, 2024). This conversation was moderated by Dr. Daniel K. Williams.

American history has profoundly shaped, and been shaped by, Christianity. Turning Points in American Church History provides a brisk and lively yet deeply researched survey of these intertwined forces from the colonial period to the present.

Elesha Coffman tells the story of Christianity in the United States by focusing on 13 key events over four centuries of history. The turning points are as varied as the movements they track, including a naval battle, a revival, a schism, a court case, an outpouring of the Spirit, an act of terrorism, the election of a bishop, and the election of a president. Coffman highlights women and men from a range of traditions and shows how, throughout these events, Christians endeavored to discern what it meant to live faithfully in the diverse and rapidly changing place that became the United States.

This book helps readers understand their own faith and the landscape of American religion. Each chapter includes a hymn, a prayer, relevant historical images, excerpts from primary sources, and resources for further reading. Foreword by Mark A. Noll.

Enjoy a book talk with Dr. Elesha Coffman on her book, Turning Points in American Church History (Baker, 2024). This conversation was moderated by Dr. Aaron Griffith.