A second parable I’ve been thinking about today: The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full … More Parables: Seeds
One of the luxuries of being on sabbatical is that I have time to bake bread, a cathartic practice that helped me cope with the stress and frustration of dissertation writing. So this afternoon, as I tried to cope with the stress and frustration of yesterday’s result, the kids and I are making honey wheat rolls for supper. … More Parables: Yeast
Ten years ago yesterday, a man named Charles Carl Roberts IV shot ten students in a school near Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, then committed suicide. Five children died; five eventually recovered. Sadly, episodes like this have become almost familiar in American society, but this mass murder was unique. Not only did it take place at a one-room Amish schoolhouse in rural … More Amish Grace and the Anabaptist Way
The last two weeks I’ve tried to convince Anxious Bench readers that we tend to overemphasize the influence of books on Christianity, while understating that of other types of writings: e.g., hymns and prayers. As I conclude that series today, I go beyond the written word altogether and offer some historical and theological reflections on the most famous American … More Beyond Books: The “Head of Christ”
Here… • I realized that my sabbatical had temporarily relocated me to a bastion of Donald Trump support. (At least during my sabbatical, I’m planning to move my week-in-review posts from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.) • Our friend Jared Burkholder was back with an open letter to David Barton about primary sources. I’ll have my … More That Was The Week That Was
I’ve occasionally used this blog to write about my mom and her family, my dad and his family, and my children. But today I’m going to break with longstanding tradition and devote an entire post to my wife Katie. (But knowing how much this will embarrass her, I’ll try to keep it short. Just over a … More For My Wife, on Our Tenth Wedding Anniversary
As I begin work on a book with one of its pastors about its theological heritage, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Evangelical Covenant Church. So with delegates from its congregations gathering in Phoenix, Arizona for our denomination’s annual meeting, I thought I’d share a few quotations from a few of my favorite Covenanters, clustered around our denomination’s … More Glad Hearts: Some of My Favorite Voices from the Covenant Church
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
When I shared my summer reading list last year, it started with John Turner’s biography of Mormon leader Brigham Young and Philip Jenkins’ religious history of World War I. Little did I know that a year later I would be sharing a blog with both scholars! So I’ll start this year’s list as optimistically as I … More My 2016 Summer Reading List
During our travels over the holiday weekend, we visited a church and witnessed an odd, telling moment. Looking for a negative sermon illustration at one point, the pastor spontaneously mentioned “the presidential candidate who says he doesn’t need God’s forgiveness.” As best I can recall, the pastor didn’t even say Donald Trump’s name, but he clearly thought he had crossed … More “Tell It Like It Is”: How the Church Should Respond to Trump
The Pietist Schoolman 