Sneak Peeks of Our Pietism Book: Hoping for Better Times

Let’s end the week on a high note — with one more sneak peek at the working draft of our book on Pietism and the future of Christianity: Mark’s chapter on the Pietist instinct to “hope for better times.” (If no one else needs to read this, I do.) We’ll dive right in with this excerpt from early in … More Sneak Peeks of Our Pietism Book: Hoping for Better Times

The 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

A century ago today, one of the great crimes in modern history began to unfold in the ancient city of Istanbul. In the middle of that Saturday night, Ottoman police rounded up the leading figures of their capital city’s Armenian community. One of them, an influential bishop named Grigoris Balakian, survived to leave behind this account: We arrived … More The 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide

Denial vs. Free Speech

A week ago today the French Senate voted 127-86 to make it illegal to deny or “outrageously minimize” mass killings that the French have officially deemed to be “genocides,” with violators facing a year in prison and a fine of up to 45,000 €. The vote brought immediate condemnation from the government of Turkey (already … More Denial vs. Free Speech

Expats

A series of posts taking you day-by-day through a proposed travel version of my course HIS230L World War I. Read the introduction to the series here, or the previous post here. Saturday, January 19, 2013 – Paris Both the political capital of the first modern nation-state and the cultural capital, in several writers’ judgment, of … More Expats