Matthew Avery Sutton, a history professor at Washington State University, is a Guggenheim Fellow and author of American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism. In his recent op-ed for the Seattle Times, Sutton examines the views of many evangelical Americans who see Donald Trump’s candidacy as a harbinger of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
A WSU alumna and rising-star in higher education student services, Ciera Graham will be honored at the University of Cincinnati during the UC College of Arts and Sciences’ annual alumni recognition event Oct. 20.
Graham earned her PhD in sociology at UC in 2015. She earned her undergraduate degree in sociology and master’s degree in psychology at WSU, where she now works as the associate director of student services and Title IX coordinator.
“Outlaw architecture” installations by visiting artist Oscar Tauzon will be on exhibit through Oct. 15 in the Fine Arts Gallery at Washington State University. The works have been created with help from WSU fine arts students.
An opening reception will be 5-7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, and a talk by the artist will be at 5 p.m. Friday, Sept. 30, in Fine Arts 5062. All are free to the public. » More …
In the wake of police-involved shootings that left two black men dead in two cities, Washington State University hosted an expert panel discussion on race and policing in America.
The event, held Tuesday afternoon in the CUB auditorium, drew a large crowd of students and community members. Put on by WSU’s Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, the panel addressed the growing outrage over police use of force against minority members.
If the name John Birch sounds familiar, it’s probably because of the John Birch Society, a far-right group founded more than a decade after his death in 1945. Less has been written about the man himself: a missionary-turned-spy who built a formidable intelligence network in China during World War II.
“He actually flew with the bombers so he could visually point out where to drop the bombs,” said Matthew Sutton, a history professor at Washington State University. “He hated the Japanese. They had destroyed the churches he had built. They were punishing the Chinese Christians. So he was doing everything he could to support the war.”
According to Sutton, Birch was one in “a small army” of Christian missionaries who were aggressively recruited to conduct clandestine operations during Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency. This little-known practice, Sutton said, “made Americans aware of the importance of religion” in gathering intelligence.
The professor recently won a $50,000 federal grant to research and write a book on the topic, tentatively titled “(Un)Holy Spies: Religion and Espionage in World War II.”
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