Professor

Department of History

Contact Information:

Christopher John Lane, Ph.D.
134 Christendom Dr.
Front Royal, VA 22630
540.636.2900
clane@christendom.edu
Office: Madonna 20

www.christopherjohnlane.com 

ORCID ID

About Me

I am a historian primarily of early modern and modern Europe, and I have been a full-time faculty member at Christendom since 2012. My writing and teaching hover around the challenges of living in modernity, both historically and in the present day. I enjoy teaching each course in our four-part history core curriculum, which stretches from classical and near eastern antiquity through our present-day global modernity, as well as a variety of electives on topics such as the history of Catholicism in Asia, the French Revolution, and St. John Henry Newman. My first book focuses on cultures of vocation in seventeenth-century France, especially young people’s choices of a state of life (marriage, the clerical state, or religious vows). The study of these choices provides a window into fundamental issues such as lay vocation, the role of parents in their children’s path to adulthood, and the relationship of individual spiritual liberty to the spiritual common good. I also coordinate fellowship advising for our students and serve as our campus Fulbright Program Adviser.

Education

PhD, University of Notre Dame, History (2015)
MA, University of Notre Dame, History (2010)
MA, Saint Louis University, History (2007)
BA, Christendom College, Theology (2003)

Core Courses Taught

• HIST 101: Ancient Foundations of Western Civilization
• HIST 102: Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 33–1291
• HIST 201: Early Modernity, 1291–1715
• HIST 202: The Modern World, 1715–present

Elective Courses Taught

• Early Modern Catholicism
• The History of Catholicism in Asia
• Causes and Effects of the French Revolution
• The History and Theology of Vocation
• St. John Henry Newman Seminar

Selected Scholarship (Peer-Reviewed)

Callings and Consequences: The Making of Catholic Vocational Culture in Early Modern France (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021). 

“Rigorism and Clericalism in the Vocational Discernment Culture of the Nineteenth-Century Catholic Revival,” The Catholic Historical Review 109, no. 4 (Autumn 2023).

“Newman and a Historian’s Craft,” in Juan R. Vélez, ed., A Guide to John Henry Newman: His Life and Thought (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2022).

“Gentle Holiness in the Vocational Culture of Seventeenth-Century French Visitandine Nuns,” in Jenni Kuuliala, Rose-Marie Peake, and Päivi Räisänen-Schröder, eds., Lived Religion and Everyday Life in Early Modern Hagiographic Material (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 

“Vocational Freedom, Parental Authority and Pastoral Persuasion in Seventeenth-Century France,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 69 (2018), 768-784.

Selected Popular Works

Book Review: “REVIEW: Slow Productivity,” Current (12 June 2024).

Lecture: “Inculturation and the Evangelization of China,” Principles live online lecture, Christendom College (28 May 2024).

Essay: “Limitless Wishing and Its Discontents,” Front Porch Republic (29 April 2024).

Essay: “Counsels vs. Commands in Vocational Discernment,” Homiletic and Pastoral Review (30 March 2024).

Essay: “Reads of the year for living in modernity,” Current (20 December 2023).

Podcast interview: “The Historian and Vocation,” Christendom Conversations, interview by Mark Rohlena (16 November 2023).

Interview: “Ideas in progress: Christopher J. Lane on teaching, vocation, and the stress of discerning a calling,” interview by Nadya Williams, Current (10 August 2023).

Essay: “Augustine and the Bullfight,” co-authored with Dixie Dillon Lane, Current (26 July 2023).

Interview: “Callings, consequences, and vocational crises,” interview by Rachel Hoover, Catholic World Report (2 Feb 2023).

Lecture: “Newman, Anglo-Catholicism, and the Anglican Patrimony,” St. John Henry Newman Lecture Series, Christendom College (31 October 2019).

Essay: “St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the Reception of the Sacred Heart,” Crisis Magazine (16 October 2014).

Essay: “St. Paul Miki and the Rise of Japan’s Hidden Christians,” Crisis Magazine (6 February 2014).

Essay: “Trusting in God with St. Francis de Sales,” Crisis Magazine (30 December 2013).

Essay: “Blessed Louis Brisson and the Nineteenth-century Salesian Pentecost,” Crisis Magazine (10 October 2013).

Essay: “The Holy Household of Louis and Zélie Martin,” Crisis Magazine (11 July 2013).

Essay: “The Hidden Holiness of Charles Gobinet,” Crisis Magazine (15 October 2012).

Essay: “Everything She Had: The Widow’s Mite of St. Jeanne de Chantal,” Crisis Magazine (13 August 2012).

Professional Affiliations