This week I wrote about the religious implications of life on other planets and received the first advance review of my Lindbergh biography. Elsewhere: • Philip Jenkins did me the great honor of writing a sequel to my extraterrestrials post, filling in some important, esoteric context to help explain why an English devotee of Eastern … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I shared my summer reading list and reflected on calling and the Christian college. Elsewhere: • This month’s meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention will just be the latest iteration in an old debate over women’s ordination. • Speaking of the country’s largest Protestant denomination… Why did Russell Moore leave the SBC? In a letter … More That Was The Week That Was
I’m hoping to get back to blogging regularly this week. But first, a look back at some of what I was reading and writing during my May break from Pietist Schoolman: • Over at The Anxious Bench, I wrote about COVID, abortion, “practical atheism,” and a Norwegian bishop who resisted his country’s Nazi occupiers. • While it … More That Was The Month That Was
This week I celebrated the value of scholarly citation (really) and told the story of a rather enterprising Catholic priest who lamented the rise of what we now call “religious nones” at the end of World War II. Elsewhere: • Bob Smietana broke the story of popular speaker-writer Beth Moore leaving the Southern Baptist Convention. • If … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I reflected on history as a kind of spiritual discipline appropriate to the Christian season when we contemplate sin and mortality (“like any Lenten discipline, such study is also a way of encountering the Christ who redeemed those sins, and seeing the world more as he saw it”). Elsewhere: • Speaking of contemplating mortality… … More That Was The Week That Was
Apart from announcing my first Lindbergh book talk (Zoom-ing your way on March 18th), things were quiet here as I worked on the index for that book. I’ll look to blog more in March. Meanwhile, here’s some of what I was reading: • I’ll probably come back to it in some way in more depth later, … More That Was The Week That Was
This week: • Michael Gerson’s argument for not voting on the basis of abortion alone was compelling when he wrote it on Thursday… but all the more so after the Supreme Court abruptly reentered the presidential campaign on Friday night. • I’ll write more about the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a couple of days, … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I shared a Pentecost reflection inspired (in part) by George Floyd and explained why academic freedom is deeply rooted in Bethel’s religious heritage. Elsewhere: • My Bethel colleague Sara Shady filled in for me at The Anxious Bench with a powerful reflection on the Floyd protests and riots in light of some words from Martin … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I’m co-leading a faculty development workshop meant to help Bethel colleagues write a tenure application essay on how they relate faith to learning. As that workshop concludes this afternoon, I’ll try to explain our topic in the context of Bethel’s religious heritage. I don’t expect that all of our faculty be Baptist (I’m … More A Pietist (and Baptist) Vision for Academic Freedom
This week I wrapped up my devotional series on “The With-God Life,” shared some wise words from one of my favorite historians, started a new podcast exploring the importance of the liberal arts in the middle of a pandemic, and considered Christian responses to the polio scares of the 1950s. Elsewhere: • I mentioned C.S. Lewis’ … More That Was The Week That Was
