This week I wrote about the religious history of lumberjacks, nominated the best years in sports history, and suggested seven questions that Christian colleges should ask potential presidents. Elsewhere:
• It was an impressively eclectic week at The Anxious Bench. In David Swartz’s post on the faith(s) of a popular game show host and John Turner’s review of a major new book on Christianity and oil, let me specially recommend Philip Jenkins’ eye-opening history of Christian attitudes on cremation and Agnes Howard’s thoughtful examination of nudism.
• At The Christian Century, Philip reviewed a new Danish TV series that he predicts American viewers will find “eye-opening for the picture it offers of Protestant Christianity in contemporary Europe.”
• In another Anxious Bench post this summer, I mused that children are rarely central to historians’ interpretations of the past. Turns out that there’s at least one scholar raising similar questions about biblical studies.
• The next time I have a chance to teach my Cold War history class, I need to remember to show some clips of Rocky and Bullwinkle.
• I’m glad that someone who really understands this data confirmed my impression that mainline Protestants aren’t nearly as politically liberal as you might expect.
• There’s a bloc of voters that has become both more radical and more moderate than the political party that often takes them for granted.
• Hmm, maybe conservatives don’t hate higher ed as much as they said they did…
• But one conservative columnist is sure bothered (with good reason) by one particular university president.
• Conflict between higher ed leaders and evangelical student groups continued at a historically Methodist university.
• I know it’s beating the same old drum, but… yes: STEM will not save us.
• Finally, regular readers of Pietist Schoolman will spot a familiar image heading this story on the possible discovery of a long-lost town that plays a key role in the story of Jesus.
The Pietist Schoolman 