Jenkins, Philip 1952–

views updated

Jenkins, Philip 1952–

PERSONAL: Born 1952. Education: University of Cambridge, B.A., 1974, M.A. and Ph.D., 1978.

ADDRESSES: Office—407 Weaver Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer, historian, and educator. Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, assistant professor, 1980–1984, associate professor, 1984–89, professor of criminal justice and American studies, 1989–93, professor of history and religious studies, 1993–97, Distinguished Professor of History and Religious Studies, 1997–, Religious Studies Program, director, 1992–. Frequent guest on radio and television programs in the United States and abroad, including National Public Radio's (NPR) All Things Considered and Fresh Air, and programs on the BBC, RTE, CNN, and other networks. Serves as an expert witness in legal proceedings and trials. Washington National Cathedral, member of national advisory board, 2002–. John Templeton Foundation, member of advisory board, 2005–.

AWARDS, HONORS: Solon J. Buck Prize, 1986, for article "The Ku Klux Klan in Pennsylvania"; Class of 1993 Award, Pennsylvanian State University, 1995, for distinguished humanities scholarship; scholar-in-residence, Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1995; Outstanding Book Award, Academy of Criminal Justice, 1996, for Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide; Distinguished Scholar award, Society for the Study of Social Problems, crime and delinquency section, 1996, for Using Murder; Philip Klein Prize, Pennsylvania Historical Association, 1997, for article "Spy Mad: Investigation Subversion in Pennsylvania 1917–18"; research grant, Harry S. Truman Library, 1998; Theologos Award, Association of Theological Booksellers, 2002, Gold Medallion Book Award, Evangelical Christian Publishers Association, 2003, and Christianity Today Book Award, 2003, all for The Next Christendom; Alumni Teaching Fellow Award, Pennsylvania State University, 2003.

WRITINGS:

The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry, 1640–1790, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1983.

Crime and Justice: Issues and Ideas, Brooks/Cole Publishing Co. (Monterey, CA), 1984.

(With Gary W. Potter) The City and the Syndicate: Organizing Crime in Philadelphia, Ginn Custom Publishers (Lexington, MA), 1985.

(Editor, with Ernst Schürer) B. Traven: Life and Work, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1987.

Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Great Britain, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 1992.

A History of Modern Wales, 1536–1990, Longman (New York, NY), 1992.

Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 1994.

Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with Ernst Schürer and Manfred Keune) The Berlin Wall: Representations and Perspectives, P. Lang (New York, NY), 1996.

Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania, 1925–1950, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1997.

A History of the United States, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1997, 2nd edition, Palgrave Macmillan (New York, NY), 2003.

Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1998.

The Cold War at Home: The Red Scare in Pennsylvania, 1945–1960, University of North Carolina Press (Chapel Hill, NC), 1999.

Synthetic Panics: The Symbolic Politics of Designer Drugs, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1999.

Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet, New York University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002, revised and expanded edition, 2007.

The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Images of Terror: What We Can and Can't Know about Terrorism, Aldine de Gruyter (New York, NY), 2003.

Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

God's Continent: Europe's Religious Crisis, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to books, including The Satanism Scare, edited by James Richardson, David Bromley, and Joel Best, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 1991; Wolves within the Fold: Religious Leadership and Abuses of Power, edited by Anson Shupe, Rutgers University Press (New Brunswick, NJ), 1998; The People of Wales, edited by Gareth E. Jones and Dai Smith, Gomer Press (Llandyssl, Wales), 1999; You Are Being Lied To, edited by William Corliss, Disinformation Books (New York, NY), 2001; Social Problems: Constructionist Readings, edited by Donileen R. Loseke and Joel Best, Aldine de Gruyter (Hawthorne, NY), 2003; Handbook of New Religious Movements, edited by James R. Lewis, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2003; Religion in America: European and American Perspectives, edited by Hans Krabbendam and Derek Rubin, VU University Press (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2004; Religion and Security: The New Nexus in International Relations, edited by Robert A. Seiple and Dennis R. Hoover, Rowman and Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 2004; and Secrets of Mary Magdalene, edited by Dan Burstein and Arne DeKeijzer, CDS Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to scholarly journals, including Criminology, Pennsylvania History, British Journal of Criminology, Criminal Justice History, Journal of Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Research, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies, Prison Journal, Terrorism: An International Journal, Justice Quarterly, North American Journal of Welsh Studies, Cultural Analysis, and International Bulletin of Missionary Research.

Contributor to periodicals, including First Things, American Heritage, Dallas Morning News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Chronicle of Higher Education, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Atlantic Monthly, American Outlook Arizona Republic, Catalyst, Christian Century, and Guardian (London, England).

SIDELIGHTS: Educated at Cambridge University, Philip Jenkins has distinguished himself as a prolific author of more than a dozen books, including several on American, British, and Catholic history. He has become an expert in the cycle of panics, along with their social implications, involving child molesters and serial killers, having explored those themes in several works. He has also written books on the rise of right-wing extremism in the United States, the cold war, political issues involving drugs, new religious movements and cults, and organized crime.

Several themes connect his theories on stereotyped "dangerous outsiders"; i.e., child molesters and serial killers. One is that these scares are cyclical. "Every panic is a rerun," Jenkins said in an interview in Men's Health. "Consider all this rhetoric about the Internet—how, if it isn't regulated, it will spread smut and corrupt society. It's identical to the panic about the use of the radio in the 1920s." Jenkins postulates the notion that child molestation scares tend to go in roughly thirty-year cycles. The late 1940s, late 1970s, and early 1980s follow periods where there are increasing numbers of women entering the work force and children entering daycare. These scares also tend to precede periods of increased relaxation in attitudes about sex, such as those that arose in the 1950s and 1960s. In New Republic Margaret Talbot reviewed Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America, and discussed the current generation's de-sexualization of children, or the belief that they have no sexuality. She wrote: "To permit ourselves the unfamiliar thought that skepticism about our culture's emphasis on sex abuse is not a denial or a trivialization of such abuse, it helps to be reminded just how contingent our current views really are."

According to Jenkins, these panics feed on the opinions of "experts," such as child welfare agencies and their employees, police, lawyers, and therapists, and nonexperts like the media, who have "a vested interest" in promoting these fears. "No agency dealing with a specific problem is going to say, 'Gee, I think we've got the problem licked,'" Jenkins said in the Men's Health interview. "The media benefit from a good story, and so-called experts benefit by becoming the first name on the Rolodex to be called by a TV show." Potential experts holding opposing views, if they exist, he added, fail to get similar media attention. Most evidence, Jenkins felt, points to the fact that the people most likely to be accused of abusing children, such as child care workers, are those least likely to have done so.

Another specific group of those accused, Catholic clergymen, is the focus of Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis. George W. Hunt, writing for America, called it "an important book on a most distasteful subject," adding that Jenkins's treatment, despite a "sensationalistic" title, is "scholarly" and "dispassionate." Hunt wrote, "One leaves the book more keenly aware of how much contemporary cultural prejudices influence us, how susceptible we are to rhetoric and how much the 'problems of our age' can feed our fixed assumptions and distort our sense of reality." As with his exploration of similar scares, Jenkins asks why this arose when it did—in this case, the mid-1980s—and how it gained the increasing attention that would culminate in major headlines worldwide by 2002. One contributing factor, according to Hunt, was a June 1985 article in National Catholic Reporter. The breaking of the story by a Catholic publication gave the subject credibility and the media permission to run with it, Hunt wrote. Furthermore, the story fed on support by several groups that wanted to promote their own agendas, such as Catholics denouncing homosexuality and the laxity in sexual mores, Catholic feminists accusing the Church of being authoritarian and oppressing women, and anti-Catholic media and government members. Misinformation and propaganda surrounded these panics. According to Maria McFadden in National Review, the "number of deviant priests is far smaller than alleged, and abusive clergymen are by no means all Roman Catholic."

Jenkins actually started his numerous discussions of moral panics, not in the United States but in Britain, in Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Great Britain. He draws connections between scares there and in the United States. Parallels abound: the same uproar based on stereotypes, the same media frenzy, and the voices of the same kinds of "experts." Jenkins explains how the political and social climate in Britain could give rise to panics similar to those of their American counterparts, by introducing the approach he employs in most of his books on the subject, the constructionist approach, which says that if a societal problem is not really there, it can be created. There were similarities and differences, and Jenkins asserts that imitation was part of the equation. "Intimate Enemies is an important addition to the field of collective behavior and social movements," wrote Karen Glumm for the American Journal of Sociology. "It adds a level of analysis that, prior to this point, has been missing." M.J. Moore, writing for Choice, remarked: "This solid, well-written contribution can be read profitably by everyone with an interest in modern British society."

Jenkins continued with the constructionist approach in Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide. He again establishes the notion of experts, in this case the FBI, whose perspective on these cases determines how they are defined. As Irwin Kantor noted in his review for Criminal Justice and Behavior, Jenkins points out how "the FBI and Department of Justice play major roles in presenting serial murder as a social problem" and discusses how they use cultural symbols to "tell the rest of us what is 'real.'" Kantor quoted Jenkins as saying, "The dominance of FBI experts can be observed throughout…. [T]hey successfully presented themselves as the best or only authorities on the subject and they assisted journalists and writers who reciprocated with favorable depictions of the agency." Jenkins also discusses the role that American popular culture plays in the public's interest, and American society's view of children. Kantor noted the book's lack of analysis into why people kill, but called the book "a valuable contribution because it explores how the media and popular culture bring serial murder to our consciousness."

Jenkins's academic interests also lie in discovering the roots of ultra-right extremism in the United States. The Depression with its poor economy, New Deal programs that were hated by some, and the upsurge of fascism in Europe—all played a major role, according to Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania, 1925–1950. Additionally, residual effects of hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan and ethnically and religiously defined conservative organizations, like the anti-Semitic Coughlin movement, the German American Bund, and the Italian Blackshirts, fueled extremism during that time. These groups did not simply meet and talk amongst themselves; as E.M. Tobin pointed out in his review for Choice: "They elected members of Congress, raised thousands of dollars for cultural and political causes, and supported dozens of foreign-language newspapers." Shawn Lay, writing for the American Historical Review, was hoping for more insight in the book into the sources of leadership in these groups. However, he called the book an "insightful and balanced study" that "significantly advances our understanding of the right in American politics." In particular, he praised Jenkins for doing so under "challenging" circumstances, "studying relatively small and short-lived organizations that left few records."

Jenkins's interest in both American and British political history becomes apparent in The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry, 1640–1790, A History of Modern Wales, 1536–1990, and A History of the United States. In explaining how different elements of society interacted with each other, Jenkins illuminates many connected themes. "What lifts [The Making of a Ruling Class] above the level of the basically paradigmatic application of known themes—'normal history' in the Kuhnian sense—and gives it real originality is precisely the sense of 'antiquarian' familiarity that [Jenkins] brings to his subject," commented John Money in American Historical Review. Glanmor Williams, writing in English Historical Review, stated that Jenkins's "reputation as one of the liveliest Welsh historians of the younger generation is amply confirmed by his A History of Modern Wales, 1536–1990." Williams continued that "being based across the Atlantic, he looks at Wales from an engagingly unusual standpoint."

Jenkins turned his academic attention to cults in Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History. In it, he traces the history of these new religions, especially a series of particularly strong waves of them in the past two hundred years. While members of mainstream religions dismiss these movements, referring to them pejoratively as "cults," a reviewer for Publishers Weekly pointed out how these mainstreamers "have routinely failed to recognize the ways new religions meet the deep psychological needs for their eras." In particular, this critic appreciated Jenkins's demographic research on these groups' leadership and his profiles of several different religions, such as Mormonism, Christian Science, and the House of David. Jenkins's contributions have already shed light on the times and societies he has studied. John Money's comments on one Jenkins book could be applied to his whole body of work. Money wrote: "Jenkins stands several orthodoxies on their heads and in the process starts several new hares. He does not run all of them to earth, but his book has important things to say about the world beyond Glamorgan as well as about the country itself."

Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet focuses on the availability on the Internet of child pornography for illegal downloading and viewing from chat rooms, newsgroups, and other sites. Topics such as privacy, censorship, regulating content, and ineffective law enforcement methods are also covered in the book. According to Jenkins, law enforcement concentrates on the users of child pornography rather than the suppliers, and advises officials to concentrate on preventing the distribution of images. Suzanne W. Wood, writing in Library Journal, called the book "penetrating" and "highly recommended" reading "for all concerned with this high-tech trafficking in the exploitation of children."

In Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way Jenkins examines how interpretations of Christian texts by biblical scholars has distorted the history of Christianity. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Hidden Gospels "a forceful critique." Jenkins continues his study of Christianity in The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity which examines the spread of Christianity around the globe, but especially in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. According to Jenkins, these countries will become the new centers for the Church. Christianity's expansion into the Southern hemisphere has resulted in a morally conservative, evangelical, and apocalyptic religion. Jenkins also explores the political impact of this new global Christianity, and suggests that because of it, religious struggles may be on the rise. Library Journal reviewer Glenn Masuchika observed that Jenkins's "statements are well formed, well supported by empirical evidence, and compellingly argued."

Jenkins takes a look at controversies facing other religions in The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice. The book is a "thought-provoking and balanced analysis of prejudice against Catholics," commented John-Leonard Berg in Library Journal. Jenkins delves into American history to identify the roots of anti-Catholicism and to trace the evolution of the bias against Catholics in American society with "illustrative events and scholarly insight," Berg noted. America, founded on concepts of Protestantism, has long had difficulty reconciling its attitudes toward Catholicism, Jenkins notes. In recent years, Jenkins argues, "traditional American hostility to Catholicism on religious grounds gave way in recent decades to a liberal-secularist animosity directed toward the church's moral teachings," observed Jim Fisher in National Catholic Reporter. The church's stance on feminism, gay rights, and the numerous pedophile priest scandals have generated considerable animosity toward Catholics and have enabled the media and American culture to "promote Catholic bashing without fear of the reprisals a unified church might generate in response," Fisher stated. "The book's survey of anti-Catholicism in America is brief but convincing," concluded Wilson Quarterly reviewer Jeremy Lott.

In Images of Terror: What We Can and Can't Know about Terrorism, Jenkins examines post-9/11 concepts, theories, and so-called expert information about terrorism and places it in the context of social constructivism. The book "is not simply about terrorism itself, but rather about the social construction of terrorism as a concept and problem," observed Daniel McCarthy, writing in Independent Review. Without detracting from the reality of the violence perpetrated by terrorist acts, Jenkins explains that much of what is known and accepted about terrorism has been socially constructed and interpreted, and that the reality of the problems of terrorism might not match the "conventional wisdom" that has evolved around the subject. Not only must government and expert pronouncements about terror be treated critically and with some skepticism, Jenkins cautions, but so must statements from terrorist groups themselves, since deception and subterfuge are often critical to maintaining anonymity and effectiveness of terror groups and counterterror operations as well. "As a warning to consumers about the proliferation of post-September 11 theories on terrorism, this book is brilliant," commented Audrey Kurth Cronin in Political Science Quarterly. The book is a "wonderful antidote to believing everything printed about terrorism in the press, not to mention government publications and popular books on the subject," Cronin observed.

Jenkins explores the gradual evolution of American acceptance of Native American spiritual practices in Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality. He "traces the historical trends in North America that changed popular attitudes of native spirituality from degraded spectacle to New Age salvation, from devil-worshipping snake dances to sacred shamanic healings," commented Katie Flaherty in Catholic New Times. Once ignored, reviled, or dismissed as superstition by white Americans, native spiritual ceremonies, sweat lodges, shamanistic practices, and energy vortex healing have become not only popular, but often accepted in American culture. Jenkins theorizes that when white Americans are dissatisfied with some element of their world or with American society, interest in Native spirituality increases. One negative aspect of this appropriation is that native ceremonies and spirituality become more homogenized and diminished with taken outside their original context. "Jenkins fills in the major details of the last two centuries of deep white interest in Native religion with his customary thoroughness," noted Ray Olson in Booklist. "Anyone wishing to understand the ongoing romanticization of Native American spirituality should read this book," stated a reviewer in Publishers Weekly.

In Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America, Jenkins argues that the seventies saw times of great social and political change, despite commonly held attitudes that the 1970s were bland and resulted in few developments of note. He suggests that "moral panics" and public hysteria caused by conservative reactions to social problems such as crime, AIDS, drugs, gay rights, and race combined to create an atmosphere that "drove policy and produced a view of history in which rational (and numerical) realities mattered less than emotional perceptions," commented Tim Cavanaugh, writing in Reason. These reactions created an atmosphere that reacted against the radicalism of the sixties. Only in such an atmosphere could a president such as Ronald Reagan come to power and American conservatism flourish. Expanding his definition of the seventies to cover the years from 1975 to 1978, Jenkins combines analysis of world events, American politics, and popular culture to bolster his conclusions. For Jenkins, the seventies stand as a far more formative decade that that of the rebellious sixties. Jenkins's "introduction stands alone as a cogent political-social critique, though the entire book is a joy—and revelation—to read," remarked Thomas A. Karel in Library Journal. Cavanaugh called the book "brilliant," and noted that Jenkins "shifts both the time frame and the terms of the discussion to produce a rich, surprising reading of what Tom Wolfe in 1976 christened the Me Decade." With his book, Jenkins "presents an able contribution to the burgeoning historical literature on the 1970s and '80s," commented a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Jenkins "has made an important contribution to our understanding of post-'60s America," Cavanaugh stated. Karel declared the work to be a "significant work of political history."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Alberta Report, September 9, 1996, review of Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis, p. 39.

America, March 16, 1996, George W. Hunt, review of Pedophiles and Priests, p. 2.

American Historical Review, June, 1984, John Money, review of The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry, 1640–1790, p. 765; February, 1999, Shawn Lay, review of Hoods and Shirts: The Extreme Right in Pennsylvania, 1925–1950, p. 211; April, 2001, John Earl Haynes, review of The Cold War at Home: The Red Scare in Pennsylvania, 1945–1960, p. 599.

American Journal of Sociology, November, 1993, Karen Glumm, review of Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Great Britain, pp. 830-831.

American Studies, spring, 2001, Kent Blaser, review of The Cold War at Home, p. 209.

Anglican Journal, October, 2002, review of The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, p. 13.

Archives of Sexual Behavior, August, 2000, Jay R. Feierman, review of Pedophiles and Priests, p. 401.

Booklist, May 1, 1997, Margaret Flanagan, review of A History of the United States, p. 1476; March 15, 2000, Ray Olson, review of Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History, p. 1295; September 1, 2001, Ray Olson, review of Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet, p. 22; April 1, 2002, Ray Olson, review of The Next Christendom, p. 1284; October 1, 2002, Ray Olson, "The Booklist Interview: Philip Jenkins," p. 286; January 1, 2003, review of The Next Christendom, p. 791; April 1, 2003, Ray Olson, review of The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice, p. 1359; September 1, 2004, Ray Olson, review of Dream Catchers: How Mainstream America Discovered Native Spirituality, p. 24; March 1, 2006, Ray Olson, review of Decade of Nightmares: The End of the Sixties and the Making of Eighties America, p. 58; August 1, 2006, Ray Olson, review of The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South, p. 14.

British Book News, August, 1983, B.A. Holderness, review of The Making of a Ruling Class, pp. 479-480.

Catholic Historical Review, July, 1998, Charles J. Tull, review of Hoods and Shirts, pp. 588-589.

Catholic Insight, September, 1996, review of Pedophiles and Priests, p. 10.

Catholic New Times, March 20, 2005, Katie Flaherty, review of Dream Catchers, p. 14.

Choice, November, 1983, review of The Making of a Ruling Class, p. 492; December, 1992, M.J. Moore, review of Intimate Enemies, p. 677; July-August, 1997, E.M. Tobin, review of Hoods and Shirts, p. 1864; February, 1999, D. Harper, review of Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America, p. 1140; September, 2001, P.K. Moser, review of Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way, p. 136.

Christian Century, December 13, 2003, review of The Next Christendom, p. 22.

Chronicle of Higher Education, May 11, 2001, Jeff Sharlet, "Battle Lines in the Jesus Wars," p. A19.

Church History, June, 2002, Evelyn A. Kirkley, review of Mystics and Messiahs, p. 441.

Criminal Justice and Behavior, December, 1995, Irwin Kantor, review of Using Murder: The Social Construction of Serial Homicide, pp. 451-455.

Cross Currents, spring, 2001, Mary Farrell Bednarowski, "A Cult too Frequent," p. 121.

Currents in Theology and Mission, April, 2006, Toto Onho Milu, review of The Next Christendom, p. 174.

English Historical Review, April, 1995, Glanmor Williams, review of A History of Modern Wales, 1536–1990, pp. 498-499.

First Things, June-July, 2002, David Martin, "Living in Interesting Times," review of The Next Christendom, p. 61; June-July, 2003, review of The New Anti-Catholicism, p. 54; February, 2005, review of Dream Catchers, p. 55; August-September, 2006, review of Decade of Nightmares, p. 65.

Independent Review, fall, 2004, Daniel McCarthy, review of Images of Terror: What We Can and Can't Know about Terrorism, p. 289.

International Bulletin of Missionary Research, January, 2003, Gerald H. Anderson, review of The Next Christendom, p. 45.

Journal of American History, December, 1997, Kathleen M. Blee, review of Hoods and Shirts, p. 1114; September, 1999, Joanne Meyerowitz, review of Moral Panic, p. 814; June, 2000, Robert Justin Goldstein, review of The Cold War at Home, p. 291.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, October, 2001, Daniel W. Howe, review of Mystics and Messiahs, p. 777.

Journal of Religion, January, 2003, David P. Moessner, review of Hidden Gospels, p. 127.

Journal of Social History, winter, 2001, Patrick J. Ryan, review of Moral Panic, p. 511.

Labor History, August, 2000, Charles McCormick, review of The Cold War at Home, p. 379.

Library Journal, April 1, 1997, Harry Frumerman, review of A History of the United States, p. 106; September 1, 1998, Gregor A. Preston, review of Moral Panic, p. 200; March 1, 2000, John Moryl, review of Mystics and Messiahs, p. 96; October 15, 2001, Suzanne W. Wood, review of Beyond Tolerance, p. 96; February 1, 2002, Glenn Masuchika, review of The Next Christendom, p. 108; April 15, 2003, John-Leonard Berg, review of The New Anti-Catholicism, p. 92; September 1, 2004, Nancy Almand, review of Dream Catchers, p. 156; February 15, 2006, Thomas A. Karel, review of Decade of Nightmares, p. 131; September 1, 2006, C. Brian Smith, review of The New Faces of Christianity, p. 154.

Men's Health, December, 1996, interview, "Scared Out of Our Wits," p. 54.

National Catholic Reporter, August 1, 2003, Jim Fisher, "Is Catholic Bashing Back?," review of The New Anti-Catholicism, p. 17.

National Review, December 25, 1995, Maria McFadden, review of Pedophiles and Priests, p. 58; May 20, 2002, Sarah E. Hinlicky, "Steeple Chase," review of The Next Christendom, p. 54.

New Republic, March 15, 1999, Margaret Talbot, "Against Innocence," p. 27.

New Yorker, January 14, 2002, Mark Rozzo, "Book Currents; The Fringing of America," p. 21.

New York Times Book Review, January 28, 1996, Mark Silk, review of Pedophiles and Priests, p. 22.

Policy Review, February-March, 2003, Ross Douthat, "The Christian Future," review of The Next Christendom, p. 89.

Political Science Quarterly, winter, 2003, Audrey Kurth Cronin, review of Images of Terror, p. 704.

Publishers Weekly, January 29, 1996, review of Pedophiles and Priests, p. 94; December 13, 1999, review of Mystics and Messiahs, p. 78; March 26, 2001, review of Hidden Gospels, p. 88; August 6, 2001, review of Beyond Tolerance, p. 74; April 29, 2002, review of The Next Christendom, p. 63; April 14, 2003, review of The New Anti-Catholicism, p. 66; July 12, 2004, review of Dream Catchers, p. 60; November 7, 2005, review of Decade of Nightmares, p. 61; August 14, 2006, review of The New Faces of Christianity, p. 203.

Reason, June, 2006, Tim Cavanaugh, "Suckin in the Mid-to-Late '70s: How the Carter-Reagan Era Set the Course for Contemporary America," review of Decade of Nightmares, p. 56.

Social Forces, March, 1995, review of Intimate Enemies, p. 1192; March, 2001, Valerie Jeanness, review of Moral Panic, p. 1208.

Sociology of Religion, spring, 2004, Thomas C. Langham, review of The Next Christendom, p. 95.

Theological Studies, December, 2002, Daniel J. Harrington, review of Hidden Gospels, p. 881.

Times Educational Supplement, October 24, 1997, Scott Bradfield, "Keep Rolling Along," p. 7.

Utopian Studies, spring, 2000, Jeffrey Kaplan, review of Mystics and Messiahs, p. 269.

Wall Street Journal, April 30, 2001, George Sim Johnston, "Can Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John Be Trusted?," p. A16.

Washington Monthly, November, 2001, John Schwartz, review of Beyond Tolerance, p. 57.

Wilson Quarterly, summer, 2003, Jeremy Lott, review of The New Anti-Catholicism, p. 118.