This week I explained the dedication to my new book, introduced a new seminar I’m teaching in the fall, and explored a religious consequence of America entering WWI. Elsewhere: • Either to read right now, or to save for the 20th anniversary of 9/11: this wonderfully reported long-form piece on that tragedy’s effects on one family … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I shared the acknowledgments from my biography of Charles Lindbergh, answered five questions from my publisher, and reflected on the cooperative nature of Olympic competition. Elsewhere: • “We are being punished for our sins against the environment, against one another, and against God,” wrote Mark Schwehn, thinking of COVID in light of older ways of interpreting … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I asked how Pietists follow Jesus and celebrated the life of theologian Clarence Bass. Elsewhere: • The formal release date isn’t until mid-August, but copies of my Charles Lindbergh biography are starting to be delivered… • “Religion still matters to many modern Olympic athletes,” wrote Kelsey Dallas, “but its influence on the Games is harder … 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
Apart from a Friday post on Alan Jacobs’ book, Breaking Bread with the Dead, I took it easy this week. Elsewhere: • I’m happy to report that I got my second Moderna shot on Friday. Meanwhile, vaccine skepticism and hesitancy lives on in rural America, for a variety of reasons. • One effect of COVID was that … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I looked back at a debate over women in Bethel’s denomination, collaborated on a post about the faith of Walter Mondale, and shared some very positive early endorsements of my Charles Lindbergh biography. Elsewhere: • Especially as a Minnesotan, I was relieved to see justice done in the Derek Chauvin trial. But as Elizabeth … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I shared a preview of the “virtual travel course” on World War I that I’m teaching this summer and explained why I considered starting my Lindbergh biography with an event that never happened. Elsewhere: • If you want to know why I’m spending the weekend devouring Beth Allison Barr’s The Making of Biblical Womanhood, … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I wrote about a doomed Arctic explorer and celebrated the launch of a new initiative from John Fea. Elsewhere: • In the week of Yom HaShoah, there was a lot to find fascinating in historian James Loeffler’s article on the little-known poetry of Raphael Lemkin, the Jewish lawyer who gave us the word … More That Was The Week 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
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