Archives for March 2022

Every weekday at Current we offer a feature article from a talented writer that helps our readers think more deeply about culture, politics, and democratic life. Current also hosts The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog, a thirteen-year-old forum (some might call it an […]

They are Lulu Garcia-Navarro, Roxane Gay, Charles Blow, and Wheaton College’s own Esau McCaulley. Here is a taste of McCaulley”s response: I think there are a lot of hurting people, who feel like they’re ignored, who are triggered by this […]

On Friday (tomorrow) to be exact. Here is Michael Ruane at The Washington Post: On April 1, 1950, an army of 140,000 census enumerators, equipped with fountain pens and government forms, started fanning out across the country to paint a […]

What is happening in Evangelical land: Most evangelicals support Ukraine in the Russia-Ukraine War. The wildly popular Christianity Today podcasts turns it attention to Christianity Today: Christian nationalists’ score lower than most on American religious history quizzes. Owen is at […]

In 2004, Asbury Park started issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The Black community responded with a prayer vigil.

Current‘s editorial team will be at Baylor University in Waco this weekend for the biennial meeting of the Conference on Faith and History. (Several of our contributing editors will there as well). We are always looking for writers and article […]

Robert Russa Moton was the second principal of Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute and the only African American invited to speak at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial in 1922. But he was almost cut from the program because organizers […]

Mahshid Mayar is Assistant Professor of North American Literature and Culture at Bielefeld University. This interview is based on her new book, Citizens and Rulers of the World: The American Child and the Cartographic Pedagogies of Empire (University of North […]

Can scholars keep partisan activism from derailing their primary task: truth-telling?

I am not planning on shutting down The Way of Improvement Leads Home anytime soon, but I admit that I have been tempted, and yielded to the temptations, of everything Elizabeth Corey writes about in her recent piece at National […]

Here is more from the American Historical Association website: To date, at least 14 states have passed legislation prohibiting the teaching of concepts associated with race and slavery in the United States. At least another 16 states have similar bills […]

Here is Gregory Scheneider at The Washington Post: James Madison’s Montpelier estatedrew national attention last year when the board that manages the historic home announced plans to share authority equally with descendants of people who were once enslaved there. But […]

Is a “national divorce” really our next best move?

What can you do with a history major? Become the CEO of a renewal energy investment company in Nigeria and be the 11th president of Calvin University. Boer has a Ph.D in history from Yale where he studied West African […]

Someone recently left a message on my voicemail asking me if I saw myself as part of the “liberal elite.” He is one of the regular callers who leaves voice mails whenever I write something here or elsewhere that they […]

What is happening in Evangelical land? The editor of the Babylon Bee is locked out of Twitter for hateful speech. A nice summary of the current state of the Christian Right by a Christian Right figure: Also, you can read […]

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how faithful would you say you are in terms of religion?”

Kristin A. Olbertson is Associate Professor of History and Pre-Law Program Coordinator at Alma College. This interview is based on her new book, The Dreadful Word: Speech Crime and Polite Gentlemen in Massachusetts, 1690–1776 (Cambridge University Press, 2022). JF: What […]