UPDATE (January 3, 2023): I’m afraid I’ve had to cancel this tour. I’ll be leading a private tour in 2024, but if you’re interested in what we’re considering for 2025 and 2026, click here. For most of the 2010s, my Bethel colleague Sam Mulberry and I had the joy of leading a biennial travel course … More Announcing Our June 2023 Tour of Germany
Yesterday I dedicated my new Substack newsletter to reflecting on my first visit to Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. There’s nothing unexpected about seeing such a site in the capital city of Germany — though it is still striking (maybe not surprising) that it wasn’t until 2005 that the memorial was finally … More Unexpected Sites of Holocaust Remembrance: Berlin
Buchenwald was one of the most infamous concentration camps in the Nazi system, the final resting place of over fifty thousand victims. But until my colleague Sam Mulberry and I went there last month on our week-long tour of Germany, I didn’t know all that much about Buchenwald — including the fact that it has two … More When One Dictatorship Commemorated Resistance to Another
This week I shared a free discussion guide for my Lindbergh biography and previewed the upcoming meeting of the Conference on Faith and History. Elsewhere: • My Anxious Bench colleague Nadya Williams (whose Jewish grandmother survived the German invasion of the Soviet Union) reflected on the Holocaust for the day set aside for its remembrance. (With … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I questioned my own skepticism about miraculous healing. Elsewhere: • Half of the country’s Christian congregations have 65 or fewer attenders — half what the attendance level was at the start of the century. • Meanwhile, not quite half of Americans have watched church online during the COVID pandemic — and one-third of them don’t normally … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I shared video of my first Lindbergh book talk and considered whether we’re seeing a realignment of American Christianity along lines other than the mainline-evangelical divide. Elsewhere: • If you liked my post last weekend on the history of religious colleges in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, you’ll want to read pieces by Benjamin … 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
This week I lamented how my home denomination continues to fracture over the human sexuality debate, encouraged Christians to focus more on biblical prophets and less on biblical kings, and reminded everyone that time is starting to run out to place deposits for our summer 2020 Sports in American History tour. Elsewhere: • One of my … More That Was The Week That Was
It’s been far too long since I’ve shared any links, so let me go back through a busy first month of summer and recommend several pieces to readers: • I’m not the world’s biggest Stanley Hauerwas fan, but his recent comments on the church in the age of Trump are well worth considering. • The … More That Was The Month That Was
God, give me an uncomplicated faith — if only for a moment. That’s what I prayed this morning as I attended the annual Minnesota Prayer Breakfast, a now 59-year tradition whose participants “gather to work and pray for unity so that they can come to know [God] and have their lives transformed by his love.” … More On Prayer, Death, and Resurrection
The Pietist Schoolman 