“Atlanta and the Death of Civil Rights Scholarship,” History News Network, 30 June 2006


“Access to King’s Papers also key,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 27 June 2006.


“Historians as Expert Witnesses,” History News Network, 13 March 2006.


“The AHA’s Double Standard on Academic Freedom.” With David Beito and Robert David Johnson. Perspectives, XLIV (March 2006): 46-48.


“A Time to Choose for the AHA in Philadelphia: Speech Codes and the Academic Bill of Rights.” With David Beito and Robert David Johnson. History News Network, 26 December 2005.


“An Open Letter to the OAH’s Vicki Ruiz and Lee Formwalt,” History News Network, 1 August 2005.


“Were There Blog Enough and Time,” Perspectives, XLIII (May 2005): 29-32.


Consulting All Sides on ‘Speech Codes’.” With David Beito and Robert David Johnson. OAH Newsletter, XXXIII (May 2005): 11; and History News Network, 9 May 2005.


“Murder and Biblical Memory: The Legend of Vernon Johns,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, CXII (Spring 2005): 372-418. Selected by the Organization of American Historians for inclusion in Joyce Appleby, ed., The Best American History Essays, 2006 (New York: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2006).


“Who’s Undermining Free Speech on Campus Now?” With David Beito and Robert KC Johnson. History News Network, 11 April, and Inside Higher Ed, 13 April 2005. Republished in Gary Goshgarian, ed., Exploring Language. 11th edition (Longman).


“The Crisis in History: A Review of Books about the Scandals,” History News Network, 3 January 2005.


“On the Plagiarism of Martin Luther King,” History News Network, 21 December 2004.


“Why We Are Dissatisfied with the OAH’s Report on Repression.” With David Beito and Robert “KC” Johnson. History News Network, 15 November 2004. Republished by FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.


“Paul Buhle Strikes Out Again,” History News Network, 20 September 2004.


"Churches, Mainstream," "Civil Rights Movement," "Jesse Jackson," "Martin Luther King," and "Nonviolence." To be published in John S. Resch, et al., eds., Americans at War: Society, Culture and the Homefront. 4 volumes (New York: Macmillan, 2004).


"Sklaverei: IV. Kirchengeschichtlicht" and "Southern Christian Leadership Conference." To be published in Hans Dieter Betz, et al., eds., Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Vierte Auflage (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 2004), VII,. Brill will publish an English translation in 2008.


"Martin Luther King, Jr." In George R. Goethals, Georgia Sorenson, and James MacGregor Burns, eds., Encyclopedia of Leadership (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing/Sage Reference, 2004).


"King in Time, King in time," History News Network and History News Service, 18 January 2004.


"Clio's Malpractice; or, What's A Fallen Girl To Do?" History News Network, 22 September 2003.


"Changing the Constitution to Protect Adam and Eve," History News Network and History News Service, 11 August 2002 and Wilmington News-Journal, 18 August 2003.


"Did Another Bancroft Winner Have Trouble Counting," History News Network, 16 June 2003.


"Burma's Hope Imprisoned," History News Network and History News Service, San Diego Union Tribune, 19 June 2003; and Augusta Chronicle, 20 June 2003.


"Quoting, Merging, and Sampling the Dream: Martin Luther King and Vernon Johns," Southern Cultures, IX (Summer 2003): 28-48.


"What Will the Supreme Court Do About the Pledge?" History News Network, 24 March 2003.


"Whose South Is It Anyway?" Conservativenet, January 22 2003 and History News Network, 3 February 2003


"Asking Martin Luther King ..." History News Service, Salt Lake Tribune, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Wilmington News-Journal, and History News Network,17 January 2003.


"The Year When We Got Caught," History News Network, 30 December 2002.


"Trent Lott Should Be History," Atlanta Journal-Constitution, San Diego Union-Tribune, History News Network and History News Service, 11 December 2002.


"Where Do We Go From Here?" OAH Newsletter, August 2002, and History News Network, 19 August 2002.


"Johns the Baptist," AME Church Review, CXVIII (July-September 2002), 26-31.


"Journalists Are Rushing to Judgment About Michael Bellesiles," History News Network, 10 June 2002.


Vernon Johns, "The Technique of Community," The African American Pulpit, V (Spring 2002), 24-27. Transcribed, edited and with an introduction by Ralph E. Luker


"Kingdom of God and Beloved Community in the Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr." In Ted Ownby, ed., The Role of Ideas in the Civil Rights South (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), pp. 39-54.


"Richard Hausber Bowling, Sr." and "Richard Hausber Bowling, Jr." In Sara B. Bearss, John T. Kneebone, J. Jefferson Looney, Brent Tarter, and Sandra Gioia Treadway, eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography (Richmond: Virginia State Library and Archives, 2001).


"Spring Marches on Washington," History News Service and TomPaine.com, 14 April 2000.


"'Til All The World's An Ebenezer," History News Service, 12 January 2000.


"Interpreting the Social Gospel: Reflections on Two Generations of Historiography." In Christopher Evans, ed., Perspectives on the Social Gospel: Papers from the Inaugural Social Gospel Conference at Colgate Rochester Divinity School (New York: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1999), pp. 1-13.


"Jesse Max Barber," "Randolph T. Blackwell," "John Wesley Edward Bowen," "Amory Howe Bradford," "Wallace Buttrick," "Ernest Howard Crosby," "William Nelson Deberry," "Harlan Paul Douglass," "Benjamin Orange Flower," "Alexander Palmer Haley," "Will Herberg," "Newell Dwight Hillis," "Zora Neale Hurston," "Vernon Johns," "Martin Luther King, Sr.," "Eugene William Lyman," "Francis John McConnell," "Henry Hugh Proctor," "Edgar Gardner Murphy," "Reverdy Cassius Ransom," "Charles Monroe Sheldon," "Randy Shilts," "Edward Alfred Steiner," "Theophilus Gould Steward," "Austin Thomas Walden," "Alexander Walters," "Henry Nelson Wieman," and "Whitney Moore Young, Jr." In John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).


"Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Modern Civil Rights Movement." In Randall M. Miller and Paul A. Cimbala, eds., American Reform and Reformers: A Biographical Dictionary (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), pp. 301-315.


"Feminism at the End of the Twentieth Century." In Re-Visioning Feminism Around the World (New York: The Feminist Press, 1995), pp. 46-47.


"Social Gospel." In Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith and Cornel West, eds., Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1995), V, 2513-2514.


"Martin Luther King, Jr." In David DeLeon, ed., Leaders from the 1960s: A Biographical Sourcebook of American Activism (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 117-123.


"Denials and Defiance: Teaching and Learning from African American History," Antioch Record, XLIX (May 20, 1994), 11.


"Authority, Creativity, and Originality: The Case of Martin Luther King, Jr." Religious Studies in Kansas, I (Spring, 1993), 1-5; and Antioch Record, XLVIII (April 16, 1993), 12-13, 17. Revised as: "Plagiarism and Perspective: Questions about Martin Luther King, Jr.," International Social Science Review, LXVIII (Fall, 1993), 152-160.


"'Under Our Own Vine and Fig Tree': From African Unionism to Black Denominationalism in Newport, Rhode Island, l760-l876," Slavery and Abolition, XII (September, 1991), 23-48.


"Martin Luther King, Jr., as Scholar: A Reexamination of His Theological Writings," with Clayborne Carson, Peter Holloran, and Penny Russell, Journal of American History, LXXVIII (June, 1991), 93-105.


"Racial Matters: Civil Rights and Civil Wrongs," American Quarterly, XLIII (March, 1991), 165-171.


"Dann wurden die Schwarzen geholt: Die Sklaven." In Axel Pinck, hrsg., USA: Florida und die Südstaaten, Ein Reisebuch (Hamburg, Germany: VSA Verlag, 1990), pp. 32-34.


"Martin Luther King, Jr." In Charles H. Lippy, ed., Twentieth Century Shapers of American Popular Religion (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1989), pp. 217-225.


"Edgar Gardner Murphy." In Charles Reagan Wilson and William Ferris, eds., Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 1421-1422.


"Francis James Brennan" and "Bernard James Sheil," Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Eight (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988), pp. 46-47, 588-589.


"William Porcher DuBose and A Southern Theological Tradition, 1840-1920." In Samuel S. Hill, Jr., ed., Varieties of Southern Religious Experience (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), pp. 158-171.


"Missions, Institutional Churches, and Settlement Houses: The Black Experience, l885-l9l0," Journal of Negro History, LXIX (Summer/Fall, 1984), 101-113.


"William Porcher DuBose," "Silas McBee," "James Warley Miles," and "Incarnation," Encyclopedia of Religion in the South. Edited by Samuel S. Hill, Jr. (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, l984), pp. 2ll-2l2, 235-236, 435, 477.


"To Be Southern/To Be Catholic: An Interpretation of the Thought of Five American Writers," Southern Studies, XXII (Summer, l983), l68-l76.


"Revivalism and Revisionism Revisited," Fides et Historia, XIV (Spring-Summer, l982), 70-74.


"The Crucible of Civil War and Reconstruction in the Experience of William Porcher DuBose," South Carolina Historical Magazine, LXXXIII (January, l982), 50-7l.


"Theological Liberalism and Social Conservatism: A Southern Tradition, l840-l920," Church History, L (June, l98l), l93-204.


"American Jungle/American Garden: A Conference on Cults," Federation Reports, IV (May/June, l98l), 3-5.


"John Haynes Holmes" and "Garfield Bromley Oxnam," Dictionary of American Biography. Supplement Seven (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, l98l), pp. 355-357, 596-598.


"Garry Wills and the New Debate Over the Declaration of Independence," Virginia Quarterly Review, LVI (Spring, l980), 244-26l.


"The Lost World of Garry Wills," South Atlantic Quarterly, LXIX (Winter, l980), l-l6.


"The Social Gospel and the Failure of Racial Reform, l877-l898," Church History, XLVI (March, l977), 80-99.


"'A Most Excellent Collection'," Allegheny College Magazine, XXXVI (October, l976), l0-l2.


"Religion and Social Control in the Nineteenth Century American City," Journal of Urban History, II (May, l976), 363-368.


"In Slavery's Shadow: North Carolina Methodism and Race Relations, l885-l9l5," Methodism Alive in North Carolina. O. Kelly Ingram, editor (Durham, NC: Duke University, l976), pp. 75-86.


"Faith, Doubt, and Despair," Allegheny College Magazine, XXXVI (August, l975), l2-l4. The Baccalaureate Address, delivered to the Graduating Class of Allegheny College, June, l975.


"Bushnell in Black and White: Evidences on the 'Racism' of Horace Bushnell," New England Quarterly, XLV (September, l972), 408-4l6.


"God, Man, and the World of James Warley Miles, Charleston's Transcendentalist," Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, XXXIX (June, l970), l0l-l36.