The Pietist Schoolman

Here…

• Looking for a free Lenten devotional? You’ve come to the right place.

• Last Sunday I preached on the Ten Commandments, death, and other things. Your next chance to hear me preach (and teach) is February 9-11 in Minneapolis.

• An interview with a former gymnast raised “important questions about church complicity in sexual abuse, the treatment of women within evangelicalism, and the problem with extending forgiveness without accountability (and sometimes without repentance).”

…There and Everywhere

• For another perspective on the church’s silence surrounding sexual abuse, read the latest from Beth Moore. Then Adam Laats on two famous cases of fundamentalist colleges covering up such cases.

• A new book looks inside the world of snake-handling Pentecostal churches.

• Then there’s the religion of Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, as reported by Bob Smietana.

• Alissa Wilkinson wasn’t sure that a sequel to The Passion of the Christ could rival the success of the original.

• European Catholics are revising their translations of the Lord’s Prayer.

• Thoughtful and thought-provoking piece by Eboo Patel, whose encounter with an African American soldier got him wondering if ignoring Trump supporters was a kind of privilege.

• Of all the oddities of the current political landscape, one of the oddest is watching NeverTrump conservative Bill Kristol alienated from his fellow Republicans.

• I’m teaching my Cold War course next fall for the first time in a couple years. I can’t decide whether or not to assign “a 720-page book that chronicles the history of a period that is quite familiar to most of us”…

• What an interesting way to map the American population…

• I’ve mostly been able to avoid the Super Bowl hoopla in Minneapolis. But a football-themed gospel concert did take over part of my workplace this week. And you’ll never guess the concert’s main attraction.

• Tom Hanks seems like the ideal actor to play Mister Rogers. “But even Hanks,” wrote Tyler Huckabee, “doesn’t occupy the same stratosphere of Rogers’s legacy of moral and spiritual importance.”

• More bad news for a leading seminary — this time, one of the flagships of the ELCA’s system of theological education.

• And it’s not just Christian higher ed in America facing financial challenges.

• Why do professors tend to earn about 15% less than similarly educated peers? And (why) are they okay with that?

• You’ve heard of “food deserts.” Nearly eighteen million Americans live in “education deserts” — with three million lacking even access to online options.

• In recent months, The Anxious Bench has featured a couple of posts on the “distribution problem” facing Christian scholars who struggle to reach the Christian public. I shared a few of my own thoughts on the problem, and possible solutions.

• Last, but absolutely not least… It’s so very like my friend Sam Mulberry to be celebrated for his astonishing work and respond, “The things I’m proudest of are things no one will ever know about.”