Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from all of us at Current. Thank you for reading, following, and supporting us this year and engaging our efforts to reflect on some of life’s most important questions!
Archives for December 2021
Baylor University is now a research university. How will it maintain its Christian identity?
Baylor University recently became a Research 1 (R1) university. This means that the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education has recognized the school for its commitment to research and doctoral studies. Texas now has ten R1 institutions: UT-Austin, UT-Dallas, […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Rob Vaughn, Christmas Transcendence John Fea, Why Evangelicalism Continues to Inspire Me with Hope Thomas Hibbs, Crime, Punishment, and Columbo Eric Miller, Three Weddings, One Question Jay Green, John Lennon […]
Commonplace Book #204
Even if justice should be achieved by social conflicts which lack the spiritual elements of non-violence, something will be lacking in the character of the society so constructed. There are both spiritual and brutal elements in human life. The perennial […]
American Historical Association Annual Meeting Omicron update
Here is the latest on the AHA meeting in New Orleans. I received this in my inbox yesterday: The AHA is carefully monitoring the news about the Omicron variant, particularly in the New Orleans area, as COVID-19 numbers spiral around […]
The Many True Meanings of Christmas
Lay down your arms. It’s time to celebrate.
The Author’s Corner with Peter Swenson
Peter Swenson is Charlotte Marion Saden Professor of Political Science and Professor in the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. This interview is based on his new book, Disorder: A History of Reform, Reaction, and Money in […]
Commonplace Book #203
A realistic analysis of the problems of human society reveals a constant and seemingly irreconcilable conflict between the needs of society and the imperatives of a sensitive conscience. This conflict, which could be most briefly defined as the conflict between […]
Angels From Another Angle
Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Angels Appearing Before Shepherds urges us to see the familiar anew
The world is on fire
The New York Times has gathered 183 climate stories from around the world. You can even type-in the name of your county to see the top climate change risk in your area. In my county of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, heat […]
Commonplace Book #202
[The moralist] believes…that nothing but an extension of social intelligence and an increase in moral goodwill can offer society a permanent solution for it social problems. Yet the moralist may be as dangerous a guide as the political realist. He […]
Crime, Punishment, and Columbo
In our contemporary debates about policing, a venerable Russian writer weighs in
The 1877 Project?
It sure sounds like the Dunning School to me. Here is Eric Levitz at New York Magazine: In a recent column for The American Conservative, Helen Andrews argues that Reconstruction — that brief slice of the 19th century during which Black Southerners enjoyed extensive political […]
How Twitter exploits intimacy and rewards ideological purity
Here is C. Thi Nguyen at The Raven: Twitter tempts us with a delicious possibility: that we might find connection with total strangers. On Twitter, we can discover people who share our moral vision—or, at least, our weird tastes in […]
The Author’s Corner with Dillon Carroll
Dillon Carroll is an Instructor at Butte Community College. This interview is based on his new book, Invisible Wounds: Mental Illness and Civil War Soldiers (LSU Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write Invisible Wounds? DC: I’ve always been attracted […]
What Fruit Do Universities Bear?
Free inquiry without ethics endangers freedom
The Author’s Corner with Jack Noe
Jack Noe is Teaching Associate at the Queen Mary University of London. This interview is based on his new book, Contesting Commemoration: The 1876 Centennial, Independence Day, and the Reconstruction-Era South (LSU Press, 2021). JF: What led you to write Contesting […]
Three Weddings, One Question
Union and reunion dance, even in pandemic times
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Distraction-free writing Why is America at war over slavery? On napping and productivity What if the January 6 Committee issues a compelling report and nobody cares Newtown mourns What “Big […]
From the archives: Jack Hibbs dabbles in American history and it is a disaster. We need another Dudley Rutherford moment
This post is from July 13, 2021: In 2011, Dudley Rutherford, the pastor of the Shepherd of the Hills Church in Porter Ranch, California, sat down in front of a camera and told the inspiring story behind the writing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” […]