A few things online that caught my attention this week: Why we need the humanities The Springsteen-Obama echo chamber? The Columbia Journalism Review covers evangelical financial guru Dave Ramsey The American Right and Hungary Gerald Early on identity politics Americans […]
Archives for October 2021
What is popular this week at CURRENT?
Here are the most popular Current features of the last week: Vincent Bacote, “Wide Awoke at Wheaton” Elizabeth Stice, “Bring Back Cincinnatus” Jon Boyd, BOOK MARKS: To See What Will Infect You Timothy Larsen, “The Blessed One” Daniel K. Williams, “Evangelical […]
What Carl Trueman Gets Right About the American University
Illiberal rule mocks the liberal pretensions of the academy today
“Evangelical”: I want that word back!
I was recently a guest on the Truth Over Tribe Podcast. It is hosted by Keith Simon, pastor of The Crossing Church in Columbia, Missouri. Here are a few segments: Listen to the entire episode here.
Evangelical roundup for October 28, 2021
What is happening in Evangelical land? Carl Trueman talks more about “evangelical elites”: Evangelical = Republican An important reminder: This is also worth considering: A “Christian worldview” Actually, today’s Trotskyists are some of the strongest opponents of the 1619 Project […]
Wide Awoke at Wheaton?
McDermott’s misrepresentations and evangelicals’ missed opportunities lead to lament
Philip Vickers Fithian: “The young American torn between cosmopolitan aspiration and more rooted satisfactions”
Today I heard from a professor who is using The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in an American history course. I am grateful for the way this book continues to resonate with people. […]
Thomas Maule’s words were a stinging and prophetic critique of the Salem witch trials; they also landed him in jail for twelve months
I recently finished a lecture in my Colonial America class at Messiah University on the historiography of the Salem witch trials. We discussed all the major interpretations: Boyer and Nissenbaum, John Demos, Carol Karlson, Elizabeth Reis, Richard Godbeer, Mary Beth […]
Episode 25: “The Fight Has Just Begun”
The Christian Right responds to the Senate’s decision not to pursue a Federal Marriage Amendment Episode 25: “The Fight Has Just Begun” dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above receive this narrative history podcast. Here is a teaser: […]
David Dark exhorts us to “fear no theory”
Back in September 2020 I asked, “who’s afraid of critical race theory?” Over at his Substack page, writer David Dark seems to be asking the same question and offering a much more elegant answer. Here is a taste of his […]
The Blessed One
Tony Bennett has just released another studio album—at 95
Springsteen: “Do you want Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz, Ron DeSantis, and our ex-‘fearless leader’ deciding the fate of the American experiment?”
Good question. Watch: And “The River”:
Rick Perlstein: Conservative trolling has a long history
Here is the author of Before the Storm, Nixonland, The Invisible Bridge, and Reaganland: David Frum, the former George W. Bush speechwriter and current never-Trump conservative, recently wrote, “The post-Trump right has a style as distinctive as its authoritarian substance: trolling, […]
Moral Society and Immoral Man
Is society a conspiracy against freedom? Or is it freedom’s hope?
The Author’s Corner with Leigh Eric Schmidt
Leigh Eric Schmidt is Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities at Washington University. This interview is based on his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021). JF: What led […]
Evangelical roundup for October 25, 2021
What is happening in Evangelical land? What does it mean to leave evangelicalism? Peter Wehner on Trumpism in evangelical congregations. How Liberty University handles reports of sexual assault Swords to plows: A cell-phone tower in the shape of a cross […]
Bring Back Cincinnatus
The unceasing quest for power drains politics of its chief purpose: service
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Robert Nisbet on managerialism and the modern university How will today’s students fall in love with a book? The British Empire was built on slavery, and then antislavery. The music […]
Cornerstone University votes no-confidence in president the day before inauguration
We posted on this earlier in the week. Here is the latest from Religion News Service: Faculty at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan, voted no confidence in the Christian school’s incoming president on Thursday (Oct. 21), one day before his […]
Gordon Wood and Woody Holton will debate the meaning of the American Revolution
Learn how to watch Saturday’s debate here. It is sponsored by the Massachusetts Historical Society. Here’s more: Gordon Wood and Woody Holton are both distinguished scholars of the American Revolution. But they approach the founding very differently, as you can […]