It’s been a while since I’ve (a) posted here as opposed to Substack or (b) recorded a new podcast. So today I’m happy to announce the premiere of a three-episode run of The 252, the podcast about the history and politics of sports that I co-host with my Bethel colleagues Chris Moore and Sam Mulberry. … More Tuesday’s Podcast: The Political History of the World Cup
Earlier this month the Christian Reformed Church concluded a six-year debate on human sexuality by voting not only to uphold its traditional view that sex is reserved to man-woman marriage, but to confirm that belief’s “confessional status” — as pertaining to the Heidelberg Catechism’s statement against “unchastity.” I’m no expert on Reformed polity or theology, but … More Why, More Than Ever, Christian Colleges Need to Inhabit the “Messy Middle”
This week: I learned how Latter-day Saints follow Jesus and checked in on the most popular posts so far this year at The Anxious Bench. (I also flew home after a week in Germany — more on that next week…) Elsewhere: • For my money, the most important moment from this week’s hearings on the January … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I published a book (thanks to a lot of work by a lot of other people), battled the impostor syndrome, and explained what I think the “applied humanities” are. Elsewhere: • I don’t know what to say about the stunning scenes in Afghanistan… The collapse of the Afghan army had deep roots, and, … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I wrestled with the question of whether Christian college professors like are also Christian “ministers,” I looked into the religious history of March Madness, and I recalled some of my favorite non-history classes in high school and college. Elsewhere: • There’s an idea in mathematics called self-similarity across scale: for example, in America you … 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
A couple of rules I live my life by: Use the lectionary as an opportunity to read scriptures that are easy to skip over. Don’t embarrass myself or anyone else by writing about sex. Normally, these two don’t come into conflict. But I’m writing a daily series of devotions, and today’s readings include some verses … More The With-God Life: Song of Songs
This week I learned about a pagan, white supremacist movement that is rededicating a church in Minnesota and looked at how Bethel and its peers scored on a financial stress test. Elsewhere: • Bethel caught flak on social media for establishing a scholarship named after George Floyd, but to his great credit, our new president … More That Was The Week That Was
It was a year ago now that the annual meeting of my home denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church, voted to oust First Covenant Church of Minneapolis, its senior pastor, and another ordained pastor for their affirmation and blessing of LGBTQ participation in the church. “As a Pietist,” I wrote after the annual meeting in Omaha, … More “Generous, Humble, and Free”: A Pietist Vision for the Church
If nothing else, this is a wonderful time for all of us to catch up on our reading. To that end, let me encourage you to check out the April e-book sale at Eerdmans, which has discounted 300+ titles to prices as low as $1.99. (Most are under $4.) The sale runs through the end … More Time to Load Up on E-Books
The Pietist Schoolman 