Another busy week as the semester starts to wind down… I talked with the director of the Minnesota Historical Society about public history, and with two of my students about hockey. I shared a talk I gave on sacramental similes for the liberal arts, and the Minnesota Prayer Breakfast got me thinking about death and resurrection. Elsewhere, a small cross-section of what I’ve been reading:
• In my prayer breakfast piece, I alluded to Union Theological Seminary president Serene Jones’ controversial comments about the resurrection. Rather than write any more myself, I’ll just refer you to the response from Jesuit writer James Martin. Like him, “I believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the first Easter Sunday. And I do not see that as any sort of parable or metaphor. This is, frankly, the very heart of my faith.”
• This week at Anxious Bench, I’ll write one more piece inspired by the Notre Dame fire. Meanwhile, I appreciated Elizabeth Stice’s observation that such places, “where we can touch a long-distant past, are an important part of the vast structure of human recollection.”
• It’s not surprising at all, but a new Pew study suggests how Twitter “works like a collective hallucination, not a community.”
• If nothing else, the age of Trump is revealing which conservatives are consistent in their views and which believe in nothing but political expediency.
• An interesting week in Iowa politics, as a long-serving Republican legislator switched parties in protest of Trumpism and an evangelical kingmaker invited Democratic presidential candidates to talk about their faith.
• What should we make of Elizabeth Warren’s proposed debt relief and free college proposals?
• A burst pipe and temporary office relocation gave one university’s president a new perspective on her institution.
The Pietist Schoolman 