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
This week I remembered the educational — and political — legacy of GW Carlson, who died five years ago this month, and reviewed the first presidential memoir from Barack Obama. Elsewhere: • As always, the Super Bowl prompts some interesting religion reporting: Bob Smietana’s profile of Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid explained how the … More That Was The Week That Was
Some of what I was reading last week: • As a historian, I often wrestle with the pull of nostalgia. As Michial Farmer explained, it might be that such longing for the past has its uses. • It was 250 years ago that British soldiers killed five colonial protesters in Boston. “Such commemorations offer opportunities … More That Was The Week That Was
When better to focus on America’s National Pastime than the day that Minnesota shatters its February record for snowfall? Yes, it’s our spring training episode of The 252! • Chris Moore suggested some ways that baseball is both shaped by politics and helps us to think about politics. • Then we discussed who belongs on … More Wednesday’s Podcast: The Mount Rushmore of Baseball History
God, according to the Bible, “has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecc 3:11). I try to keep this wisdom in mind, as a scholar who is too prone to assume that his discipline has a monopoly on human … More In Which a Historian Learns to Embrace Nostalgia…
Chris and Sam riff on trump, sabbath, nostalgia, and three other words. … More Nothing Rhymes with Gehrz (Episode 2)
Here… • The Confessing Faculty statement drew attention from Inside Higher Ed (and, a day later, The Chronicle of Higher Education), though my colleague and co-signer Ray VanArragon had some reservations about it. • Was 2016 a turning point in the history of American evangelicalism? Martin Marty, Grant Wacker, and other historians weighed in. • As we prepared to say farewell … More That Was The Week That Was
I had intended to write a series of these “dispatches,” and I still might have one or two more things to add before we head back to Minnesota. But for now, I put together a few observations about our time in one of the most strongly pro-Trump parts of the country. For my fall sabbatical, my … More Dispatches from Trump Country: The Past and Politics
I’m kind of amazed how many people actually took me up on the offer to read a long, untitled post yesterday about Donald Trump — and grateful for the kind, thoughtful responses here, on Facebook, and at Twitter. I’ll likely wait till next week to publish a follow-up, but when I write again on Trump, I … More “Make the Church Great Again”?
I’m still a bit punchy after enduring the entire Oscar ceremony, but as best I can tell, two of my non-predictive Oscar predictions actually came true: Bret McKenzie picked up Best Song for “Man or Muppet” (The Muppet Movie), and Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim “Hey, it’s the dean on Community” Rash won Best … More Oscar Shout-Outs
The Pietist Schoolman 