When I blogged earlier this year about the election of Jorge Bergoglio as a “pope of firsts,” the first such groundbreaking I explored was Pope Francis as the “First Latin American Pope.” I noted that some observers speculated that the election was meant, in part, to address the decline of Catholicism in regions like Francis’ … More Shifting Religion in South America
Here… • I concluded my series on patriotic songs in American hymnals: part two introduced a few songs that never made it into more than one or two hymnals; part three asked why even very popular patriotic songs fail to appear in many hymnals. • No, Pope Francis did not promise “get out of purgatory … More That Was The Week That Was
When I teach my class on Human Rights and International History (as I will again next spring), few issues are as vexing as that of female circumcision, a practice that has affected something like 130 million women around the world — including 2-3 million girls each year in Africa alone. If you’re unfamiliar with it, … More Rights-Talk as Conversation, not Condemnation
While I read it regularly on Feedly, The Atlantic is not exactly my go-to source for reporting on Christianity in America or elsewhere. And yet this morning it featured a hugely interesting, informative post with the surprising headline, “Is Immigration Reform Dead? Not If Evangelicals Can Do Anything About It.” FYI – I don’t normally … More Evangelical Leadership on Immigration Reform
By far the most popular American patriotic hymn is Samuel Francis Smith’s “America,” appearing in over 1600 of the hymnals indexed at Hymnary.org — nearly four times as many as Katharine Lee Bates’ “America the Beautiful” and Julia Ward Howe’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” five times more than Francis Scott Key’s “Star-Spangled Banner.” And … More “Of thee I sing”: A Brief History of Patriotism in American Hymnals (part 3)
“Martin Luther must be turning over in his grave,” tweeted a former student of mine last night, re: the following announcement from the Vatican (via The Guardian passing on news from an Italian newspaper) about a certain practice that both prompted and survived the Protestant Reformation: Indulgences these days are granted to those who carry … More e-Indulgences?
I’m still researching an answer to last Monday‘s closing question: why is it that so many hymnals don’t include popular patriotic hymns? As a placeholder, though, I thought it might be fun to share a rare evening post spotlighting a few songs in this genre that just never found an audience. (Here again, relying on … More “Of thee I sing”: A Brief History of Patriotism in American Hymnals (part 2)
Here… • “Groaning” for the kingdom of God as a spiritual practice: Christian Collins Winn on Blumhardt Pietism and social justice. • Examining the waxing and waning popularity of America’s favorite patriotic hymns. • Almost a hundred years later, World War I is still adding to its death toll. • John Calvin doesn’t look a … More That Was The Week That Was
I took the picture above during my first tour of the former Ypres battlefield, a key point along the Western Front of World War I. Our tour guide Carl pulled up to a local farmer’s house, opened the garage, and here was a table full of shells, grenades, bullets, and fragments of such ordnance. When … More Iron Harvests: The Death Toll from World War I Continues to Grow
Last summer I killed some time filled some space indulged my own narcissism explored something other than “Christianity, history, education, and how they intersect” with a series of posts called “Albums A to Z.” In the spirit of trying to listen to music that I’d once enjoyed but hadn’t had the time or inclination to … More Albums A to Z: A Mid-Series Recap
The Pietist Schoolman 