This month’s round in the Following Jesus conversation is a bit unusual. First, while it’s broadly about “The Roman Catholic Tradition,” the author of our lead essay, Christina Wassell, is a former Protestant who now identifies as a “traditional” Catholic and devoted almost all of her original essay to the importance of the Traditional Latin … More Following Jesus: Traditional Catholicism
If only because it means that I can do more than talk about Charles Lindbergh, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be teaching a four-week adult class on an even more contentious topic: the meaning of the word “evangelical.” Even better, it’s being taught at the church I attended for fifteen years: Salem Covenant in … More My Upcoming Adult Class on Evangelicalism
As I mentioned earlier this summer, one of my projects for the next year is to represent the Pietist tradition in an online, ecumenical conversation about how different Christians understand what it means to “follow Jesus.” Each month starts with a lead essay from one conversation partner, then each of the other eleven contributors writes … More Following Jesus: The Orthodox Tradition
Yesterday I was given the honor of delivering the keynote address at the college faculty retreat for Bethel University. The retreat committee asked me to speak on the theme of unity. Here’s a lightly edited version of my comments. I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the … More “Let the Tension Remain” (Eph. 4)
Last week I shared the acknowledgments section from my biography of Charles Lindbergh. Today, a few words about the dedication: In honor of another descendant of Swedish immigrants:Dick Peterson—for whom physics is an act of worship,whose career confirms Anne Lindbergh’s instinct that“the true scientist [is] akin to the artist and the saint,”whose life demonstrates that … More Why I Dedicated a Charles Lindbergh Biography to Dick Peterson
For several years now, Harold Heie has been engaged in one of the more noble initiatives on the Internet, an online project he calls Respectful Conversation. A former Christian college professor and administrator, Heie found himself appalled at the sad state of public discourse in contemporary society, including the realm of politics, the media, and … More How Do Pietists “Follow Jesus”?
I was out of town over the weekend at one of my daughter’s softball tournaments, so I didn’t get a chance to curate my usual set of interesting links. If I had, I’m sure several of them would have collected around a surprising finding from the Public Research Religion Institute. Its 2020 Census of American … More Is Mainline Protestantism Actually Growing?
Even as we start to get back to something like a pre-COVID normal, this summer I want to do even more of one of my chief pandemic hobbies: reading books. Here’s some of what’s on my reading list for the next three months. History Most of my more academic reading will be devoted to boning … More What I’m Hoping to Read This Summer
If last year we celebrated Easter amid the physical death of a pandemic, this year of the COVID vaccine we remember Jesus’ resurrection amid the apparent dying of his church in the United States. Having hovered around 70% since Gallup began polling, the share of Americans who belong to a faith community is now below … More Don’t Look for the Living Among the Dead
Although I just wrote a biography about a man dedicated to the art of practical joking, I can’t stand April Fool’s Day. Because even if I were clever enough to come up with hilarious practical jokes, I’d feel guilty about making other people to look foolish. But driving to work today, it struck me that … More In Praise of Folly
