Articles & Essays Archives - Scott Culpepper

Selling Lies: Satanic Panic Mythologies and the Risky Business of Exposing Them

Mike Warnke and Laura Stratford could not maintain their fiction alone for as long as they did. So many people had to look the other way. Publishers, record companies, churches, pastors, and a host of other people within the evangelical subcultures of the seventies and…

Scott CulpepperAugust 13, 2021

Articles & Essays Uncategorized

On Awkward Spiritual Gateway Drugs

Like the big hair and blue eyeshadow in those senior pictures, memories of some of our formative spiritual obsessions can make us cringe from time to time. A lot of us who have learned to seek wisdom from more balanced sources can remember well some…

Scott CulpepperAugust 2, 2021

Articles & Essays Uncategorized

Who’s Afraid of the Enlightenment?

"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! And all was light.” Alexander Pope’s epitaph for the renowned English philosopher and mathematician did not make it to his tomb in Westminster Abbey. Maybe the powers that be considered it too…

Scott CulpepperMay 24, 2021

Articles & Essays Uncategorized

Unheralded Departures

Beth Moore’s departure from the Southern Baptist Convention has captured a great deal of attention. Rightly so from one perspective. Moore built a devoted following over the course of forty years teaching the Bible at a level accessible to lay people. Women in particular gravitated…

Scott CulpepperApril 20, 2021

Articles & Essays

Throwing Religious Violence Out the Window

Don’t look for many memorials dedicated to the second Defenestration of Prague. You will find a modest plaque at Prague Castle, site of the event. Defenestration does not commend itself to most of us as a celebratory sort of event. The Latin language gives us…

Scott CulpepperMay 23, 2018

Articles & Essays

An Ironic Anniversary for a Royal Wedding

I have returned from an extended hiatus devoted to writing other things just in time to note the interesting and amusing irony of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal wedding date. The royal couple have chosen May 19, 2018 as the big day. I trust…

Scott CulpepperMay 18, 2018

Articles & Essays

Assessing the Life and Legacy of Billy Graham

The world continues to reflect this week on the life and ministry of evangelist Billy Graham as funeral services are conducted for him. Graham became the first major religious figure in American history to lie in state at the capitol rotunda, a distinction which underscores…

Scott CulpepperMarch 2, 2018

Articles & Essays

Combating Correction Fatigue

I call it correction fatigue. Correction fatigue strikes when you are in the middle of grading students’ papers and you come to a paper that is filled with errors. The grammar and style are so bad that the intended meanings of the sentences are lost.…

Scott CulpepperJanuary 22, 2018

Articles & Essays

Welcome to The Imaginative Historian

My name is K. Scott Culpepper. I am a historian, storyteller, speaker, and author exploring the history and mystery of the human experience. My own experiences have included growing up in the rural South where I was awakened to a wider world through reading, viewing,…

Scott CulpepperJanuary 10, 2018

Articles & Essays

Selling Lies: Satanic Panic Mythologies and the Risky Business of Exposing Them

On Awkward Spiritual Gateway Drugs

Who’s Afraid of the Enlightenment?

Unheralded Departures

Throwing Religious Violence Out the Window

An Ironic Anniversary for a Royal Wedding

Assessing the Life and Legacy of Billy Graham

Combating Correction Fatigue

Welcome to The Imaginative Historian

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