So, Brad Paisley’s new album includes a duet with LL Cool J entitled “Accidental Racist.” Perhaps you hadn’t heard… For (to paraphrase Sideshow Cecil) you spent yesterday on Mars, in a cave, with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears. (And your iPhone off, to update a 16-year old pop culture reference a … More “Accidental Racist” and the Uses of History
I can’t imagine that too many pastors serving a United Church of Christ congregation have had their arguments featured in multiple evangelical publications within a three-day period, but that’s what Lillian Daniel of First Congregationalist Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois accomplished earlier this month. First, Christianity Today ran a review by Andrew Byers of Daniel’s … More A Mainline Critique of “Spiritual, but Not Religious”
In my recent post on why I enjoy teaching the history of the Cold War, I mentioned the odd pleasure I take in forcingencouraging my students to sing along as I play country-western songs about the evils of Communism… (You wouldn’t think there’s anywhere else to go from there, but…) As it happens, today — … More This Day In History: Stalin’s Stroke
At some point in the history of this blog, I think I’ve had at least one post about every course that I teach — with one exception: I’ve said little about my upper-division course on the history of the Cold War, for the simple reason that I haven’t taught it since May 2011, and this … More Teaching the Cold War
Tomorrow marks the beginning of our spring semester at Bethel, which should officially make me stop thinking about our recently-concluded three-week travel course in England, Belgium, France, and Germany and force me to focus on, oh, writing syllabi for the classes I have to teach. So as a farewell to January’s journeys, a few things … More What I Will and Won’t Miss About Europe
“Daddy, can you play the rabbit song?” I’ve heard this from my nearly-three year old daughter at the beginning of every car trip the past week or two, ever since I bought The Carpenter, the new album by the North Carolina folk-rock band The Avett Brothers, and she heard the second track, known outside our … More The Challenge of Making Good Folk-Pop Music
Five weeks having passed since I last posted an entry in it, perhaps it’s time to admit that my Albums A to Z series — while a triumph of both music criticism and alphabetizing — ran out of steam at “L” and is on hiatus. We’ll pick it up next summer with my favorite Monty … More My Favorite Bob Dylan Lyrics
8/29/12 – Even if I weren’t too busy to write the ‘M’ entry in my recently-neglected Albums A to Z series, I’d still let it languish for a day and instead encourage you to read Austin Chapman’s description of having been deaf his whole life and then, thanks to new hearing aids, having the chance … More Hearing Music for the First Time
“If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.” I reencountered this advice earlier this week while reading A.J. Jacobs’ book about trying to spend a year taking the Bible’s commandments as literally as possible. At multiple points during the first half of his Year of Living Biblically, Jacobs is struck … More Albums A to Z: The Last DJ
Okay, one more Olympic post… Last fall I spent a couple of weeks attempting (with a big assist from my HIS354 Modern Europe students, and with tongue mostly in cheek) to determine the “best national anthem” — pointing out at least once or twice along the way that there’s really no objective way to determine … More The Best National Anthems: Special Olympic Edition
The Pietist Schoolman 