First up in a set of three posts focused on listening to people of color speaking in the wake of last week’s grand jury decision in Ferguson, Missouri… A reflection on Advent by one of my newest colleagues at Bethel University. In our family Advent devotional last night, we read a familiar verse from the Book of … More A Week of Listening: Christena Cleveland on Advent and Darkness
So, what’s been happening in the week and a half since my last post? Watching tweet after tweet after the Ferguson grand jury decision last Monday night, I felt again what I’ve come to recognize as the greatest temptation facing bloggers: “…thinking that there are thoughts that will never be thought unless you think them, and words that will never … More A Week of Listening: Advice from Dietrich Bonhoeffer
One of the cultural residues of Britain being a post-Christian society is that companies try to outdo each other in celebrating the Incarnation by creating memorable “Christmas adverts.” The 2014 versions are coming out, and one has already garnered enormous attention — positive and negative: Yes, the supermarket chain Sainsbury’s not only produced a three-minute … More On Advertising, Chocolate, and the First World War
Last July, a few months into the first Latin American papacy, I shared some findings from a Pew Forum study of religion in Brazil, where the Roman Catholic share of the population fell from 92% in 1970 to 65% in 2010. Today Pew released a broader report on the entire region — with much the same … More Religious Shifts in Latin America
Having started the week by sharing an article questioning whether we really ever learn “lessons” from the past, let me close the week by considering another way that Americans commonly try to make the past useful: by deploying it as a rhetorical weapon in the most heated debates of the present day. Two versions of this come up a lot. … More The Wrong Side of History
As I prepare to take another group of Bethel University students to Europe to learn about World War I, I’m particularly eager to show them how the war has been commemorated — in cities like London, Paris, and Munich, but also on the former Western Front itself. Two of the most striking memorials from the second … More Ottawa: The War Memorial as a Scene of Violence
Tomorrow I’ll be taking an early morning flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Chicago, where I’ll represent my congregation at Gather ’14, the annual meeting of our denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church. “What’s the Evangelical Covenant Church?” at least one person just asked. (“Why would anyone attend a denominational annual meeting?” asked someone else — or maybe the … More What’s the Evangelical Covenant Church?
Like many Americans, I’ve temporarily turned into a fervent soccerfootball fan this month, suddenly capable of savoring the thrills of a 0-0 draw like the one played yesterday between underdog Mexico and host Brazil. (And yawning at the relative artlessness of the 1-1 draw between Russia and South Korea.) But I can’t entirely suspend my eggheadedness. Even … More What Does the World Cup Reveal about Global Trade?
Seventy years ago today, Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy — opening the long-promised “second front” in the European experience of World War II and ultimately sealing the fate of the Third Reich. There’s plenty of coverage of the anniversary — let me just suggest a few links: • The Washington Post has a striking photo … More D-Day at 70
According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 21% of Americans age 5 or older speak a language at home other than English. Not surprisingly, Spanish is most common (38 million), but it’s hardly the only second language in this country. Over 11 million speak another Indo-European language, almost 10 million speak an Asian or Pacific Islands … More Beyond English and Spanish: America’s Other Languages
The Pietist Schoolman 