Belated Happy New Year, everyone! Apart from year-end wraps for this blog and The Anxious Bench, I took a break for the holidays. Here’s what some others have been writing in the last week of 2019 and the first of 2020: • In many respects, 2019 was a terrible year. But it wasn’t all bad. • … More That Was The Week That Was
I don’t know if the county fair is still the indispensable element of American democracy that an early 20th century editorial claimed it to be, but I sure do enjoy my annual visit to the Washington County Fair in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. My kids and I love seeing everything from blue ribbon-winning woodwork and photography … More The Future of Farming in America
Most of my energy this week went into starting spring classes, but we recorded a rather autobiographical episode of our new sports history podcast, I noted an unusual spate of news stories on Christian colleges, and I shared five books I’m hoping to read for Black History Month. Elsewhere… • Some more February reading recommendations … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • My big blogging announcement: I’ll be taking Tommy Kidd’s place as a weekly contributor to The Anxious Bench, the history blog at the Patheos Evangelical channel. Look for my first AB post in three days… • But that won’t stop me from blogging here… For example, about three of my favorite hymns that run counter to … More That Was The Week That Was
Yesterday’s morning’s announcement of an important honor for our Pietism/higher ed book, and then getting prepped for this morning’s start of a new adult Sunday School class combined to bump this week’s links wrap to Sunday afternoon… Here… • The most popular post of the week prize goes to Jared Burkholder, for his insights into how an ethic … More That Was The Week That Was
At the end of June I had the chance to spend a few days at Rathbun Lake in southern Iowa, joining my wife’s extended family for a reunion. Of course, even on vacation I couldn’t escape my research. In a part of Iowa most famous in religious history for being part of the Mormon Trail, I turned … More Pietism as Instincts, or It’s More Than Old Churches in Rural Iowa
The last episode of The Late Show with David Letterman aired last night — just over twenty-two years and four thousand episodes after I watched its debut in the middle of a hurricane warning, on my first evening as a college student in Virginia. I can’t really improve on all the commentary recognizing the significance of my all-time favorite TV personality to … More What Does It Mean to Be Midwestern? (A Post-Letterman Question)
The Pietist Schoolman 