Here is the press release: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band will mark their return to the road in early February, 2023 with a string of to-be-announced US arena dates, followed by European stadium shows kicking off on April […]
Archives for May 2022
“The scale of malfeasance is truly shocking”
Michael Gerson responds to the Southern Baptist sexual abuse scandal. Here is a taste of his Washington Post column: In nearly 300 pages, a third-party investigator has produced the Warren Commission report, the 9/11 Commission report, of Southern Baptist Christianity. And the scale of […]
Ourselves, Alone?
What the evolution of Sinn FĂ©in nationalism reveals about the contemporary “crisis” of liberalism
The Author’s Corner with Josiah Rector
Josiah Rector is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Houston. This interview is based on his new book, Toxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of Detroit (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). JF: What led you to ​write […]
Evangelical roundup for May 23, 2022
What is happening in Evangelical land? Syke Jethani just triggered Rod Dreher Shane returns to his bus: Shane learns something about Mastriano: The artist behind Chick Tracts has died Tim Keller quotes church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette: Ruth Graham on […]
The Sights and Sounds of Belfast
Kenneth Branagh’s film shows us what it means to come down to joyÂ
The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee’s third-party abuse investigation report was just released. It’s horrifying.
Here is Kate Shellnut at Christianity Today: Armed with a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, Southern Baptist leaders chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits rather than protect the people in their churches from further abuse. Survivors, […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Dominic Green reviews Richard Cohen, Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past. Lewis Lapham interviews Cohen here Caitlin Flanagan on the trail of Joan Didion George Will offers the […]
Eastern University alumni ask university to rescind Doug Mastriano’s 2009 “Alumnus of the Year” award
Frankly, I am surprised Eastern, a Christian college with a rather progressive political history–think Bryan Stevenson, Shane Claiborne, Roberta Hestenes, Ron Sider, Tony Campolo–would give Mastriano such an award. The committee must not have known about this 2001 paper. Here […]
On Doug Mastriano’s 2001 paper “The Civilian Putsch of 2018”
Here is Greg Jaffee of The Washington Post with some context: Two decades before he was Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano warned in a master’s thesis that the United States was vulnerable to a left-wing “Hitlerian Putsch” that would begin […]
“Economically vulnerable people of color are significantly more anti-abortion than rich white folks are”
Here is Fordham University moral philosopher Charles Camosy at Religion News Service: Stop me if you’ve heard claims like these since Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion was leaked: “We need to center the stories of the economically vulnerable and […]
Ed Ayers takes “History on the Road”
Learn all about Ed and Abby Ayers‘s “Discovery of America Tour’ here. A taste: My wife and I are embarking on a journey. We are looking for traces of America’s past from the first six decades of the 19th century, […]
Friends of Grove City College apologize to those hurt by the school’s “anti-woke” Board of Trustees
Here is the Facebook petition: The signers of this petition are students, alumni, parents, current or former employees, as well as people concerned with the continued healthy academic environment of Grove City College. We are grieving following the actions of the […]
Should I revise my interpretation of Springsteen’s “House of 1000s Guitars”?
Back in 2020, shortly after the release of Bruce Springsteen’s album Letter to You, I offered an interpretation of the song “House of 1000 Guitars.” It was a fairly popular post and I got some nice feedback from Springsteen fans. […]
Did some GOP members of Congress give “reconnaissance tours” before January 6th?
Here is Hugo Lowell of The Guardian: The House select committee investigating the Capitol attack revealed on Thursday that it had evidence to suggest certain “reconnaissance tours” took place in the days before 6 January, potentially providing some rioters with […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Jay Green, “The Strange Bedfellows of Anti-Woke Alarmism“ Daniel K. Williams, “What If Pro-Choice Politicians Acknowledged That Abortion Is a Moral Problem?“ Jonathan Den Hartog, “Scooby Doo and the Black […]
Satanic Portals, HIS-story, and Doug Mastriano
The Christian Right seems incapable of democratic conversation
“The Great Charlie Kirk,” the wizard of “Dark MAGA”
On Tuesday, North Carolinians dumped evangelical frat boy Madison Cawthorn. Yesterday he gave us more evidence as to why he wasn’t fit to serve in Congress. Perhaps some of you have already heard about the “Dark MAGA” Instagram post. In […]
The latest in the Grove City College wokeness saga
Not familiar with Grove City College’s successful attempt to crush “wokeness” and critical race theory? Get up to speed here. Here’s the latest: At a recently faculty-trustee luncheon, the Board of Trustees tried to clarify a few things. This is […]
Where does Doug Mastriano go to church?
It’s an interesting question. Where does the GOP nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, a pro-Trump, Big Lie-believing, Christian nationalist attend church? I did some digging today with the help of some friends on Twitter: Leave it to two guys with […]