Here… • I surveyed the religious history of the modern Olympic Games for my weekly Anxious Bench post… also reflecting briefly on the Olympics as religion (a theme I developed a bit more when invited to rewrite that post for The Gospel Coalition). • After a year of enormous division, could the games help bring Americans together? • And for no … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • My wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. The traditional gift is tin or aluminum, but I went with public praise and ecclesiological rumination instead. • We’ll be spending my sabbatical as a family in Virginia, where I can’t wait to attend the biennial meeting of the Conference on Faith and History. • Some reflections on the Stanford … More That Was The Week That Was
Every time I write a post about Donald Trump, I tell myself it’s going to be the last one. This is not, and has never been, a blog about politics. But it is a blog about Christianity, history, education, and how they intersect, so as the Republican National Convention begins, I’m going to write one … More Why I Signed the Historians Against Trump Letter
Okay, so it was fun taking part in Monday’s #iftrumpwereevangelical tweeting. But all that negativity isn’t sitting well with me… #iftrumpwereevangelical he would feel a teensy bit guilty for tweeting an #iftrumpwereevangelical joke. — Chris Gehrz (@cgehrz) June 27, 2016 I’m not sure that historians or bloggers can afford to be bound by the “if … More Top 10 Nice Things I Can Say about Donald Trump
Quick math: (presidential campaign season + sudden conversion story + observers of evangelicalism on summer break) x (social media) = ? That’s right: #iftrumpwereevangelical! If you’re on Twitter, agree that the best response to fear is laughter, and enjoy inside references to evangelical subculture, then you should click on the day’s fastest-trending hashtag. (Well, the most hilarious.) Among my favorites … More #iftrumpwereevangelical
It’s too nice a summer day in Minnesota to stay inside for too long, but here’s a shortened version of TWTWTW: Here… • Year six of The Pietist Schoolman started with me revisiting a Baptist debate over religious freedom in the 1960s. • I wasn’t a delegate this year, but my denomination’s annual meeting had me reading through the expanding, increasingly … More That Was The Week That Was
I’m going to push back my usual Saturday links wrap until tomorrow. It’s proven impossible to ignore what happened in Britain this week, even though I’m not sure I actually have a lot of help to offer people wondering just what Brexit is or why it matters. I can’t explain just why the European Union has … More Scattered Thoughts on Brexit
Republicans have garnered 77-78% of the evangelical vote in the last three major elections (2014, 2012, 2010). And it seems unlikely that Hillary Clinton will even reach the near-quarter of the evangelical vote that Barack Obama won in 2008. In April, Barna found that 81% of evangelicals had an unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton — over … More Could Hillary Clinton Win a Significant Share of Evangelical Voters?
Here… • My first post at The Anxious Bench surveyed British Christian responses to next week’s “Brexit” referendum. • I knew that would be the topic this time last week. But I certainly didn’t know that my second Bench post would be the same day, that it would respond to a mass shooting, or that it would focus on … More That Was The Week That Was
Ah, 2012: when I lamented how civil discourse was being replaced by “ideological segregation,” as the Left and Right engaged in “epistemic closure.” That phrase came from Julian Sanchez, who had observed that, among many conservatives, “Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts with … More Conservatives for Progressives to Read (revisited)
The Pietist Schoolman 