Thanks for reading The Way of Improvement Leads blog home this year. I know some of my longtime readers were concerned about the blog moving to Current back in April 2021. For thirteen years all of my posts were open […]
Archives for December 2022
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current:: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog:
“The Beautiful Game”
RIP:
Should Princeton University remove its statue of former College of New Jersey president John Witherspoon?
I’ve spent a little time studying Princeton University’s history over the years. My first book was on a Witherspoon student who studied at Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) between 1770 and 1772. My second book covered Witherspoon’s role […]
Evangelical roundup for December 29, 2022
What is happening in Evangelical Land? Argentinian evangelicals meet with their nation’s president. Two Florida Christian college presidents on the “Dreamers”. Evangelical organizations endorse the bipartisan Law Enforcement De-escalation Training Act. Jim Wallis offers an alternative Trump trading card: Lecrae’s […]
Bricolage
A life crafted from what’s on hand
Newspapers and democracy
Click the link to Nancy Gibbs’s piece at The Washington Post and spend some time with the interactive map on the declining state of the American newspaper. Here is a taste of the piece: If you’re a Democrat hoping to […]
Unhealthy by Design?
The very notion of “the common good” may be downright un-American
“A pair of ancient mariners with a TV contract, condemned to tell their tale to everyone they meet”Â
This is how Marina Hyde of The Guardian described Meghan and Harry, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who have made millions on their story. Over at Politico, writer Joanna Weiss describes 2022 as “the year we all finally got […]
What happened to the Rose Bowl?
According to California writer Joe Mathews, the Rose Bowl football game is dead. It died from “two chronic diseases–greed and our winner-take-all culture.” Here is a taste of Mathews’s piece at Zocalo: But the Rose Bowl itself—a post-season football game […]
Commonplace Book #227
The partiality of perspective: this is the great teaching of the contemporary tumult. The problem is that we have not only begun to acknowledge our partiality, and the partiality of others, we have also begun to revere it, and this […]
Choosing a Card that’s Good for the Planet
If anxiety is destiny, this old earth may just have chance
Commonplace Book #226
Objectivity…is the sturdiest ground of justice, and the despisers of objectivity are playing with fire. Feelings are a reedy basis for reform. After all, the other side also has feelings–which is how we wound up with the revolting solipsist in […]
Alasdair MacIntyre, Christianity, and Karl Marx
The moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre wrote Marxism and Christianity (1968) when he was twenty-three years old. Here is a taste of Matt McManus’s piece at Jacobin: “This Christmas, Radical Christianity and Marxism Can Inspire Us to Build a Better World“: […]
Evangelical roundup for December 26, 2022
What is happening in Evangelical Land: Russell Moore talks with Nicholas Kristoff about the meaning of Christmas. Tim Alberta talks to The Bulwark about evangelical political activity. An evangelical congregation in Canada is still dealing with a 2019 fire.. Texas […]
Do you believe in miracles?
No, this is not an Olympic hockey post. Check out Molly Worthen‘s piece at The New York Times, “How Would You Prove That God Performed a Miracle.” The essay features Indiana University professors Josh Brown (neuroscience) and Candy Gunther Brown […]
There was apparently no room in Greg Abbott’s inn this Christmas eve.
It’s Christmas. That means it’s time for evangelical politicians to use aslyum-seeking migrants for their political stunts. Here is CNN: Several busloads of migrants were dropped off in front of Vice President Kamala Harris’ residence in Washington, DC, on Christmas […]
Merry Christmas!
I’ve pointed this out before, but I will point it out again. Notice that Linus drops his security blanket when he says “fear not.”
Mark Lilla on “beautiful souls” and democracy
What is a beautiful soul? In 2020 essay at Liberties, cultural critic and humanities professor Mark Lilla defines it this way: What is a beautiful soul? For Schiller, who coined the term, it was a person in whom the age-old […]
Journey tells Jonathan Cain, husband of court evangelical Paula White, to stop playing “Don’t Stop Believing” at Trump events
Some of you know that Jonathan Cain of the rock-band Journey is married to Trump court evangelical Paula White-Cain. I’ll let Roy Trakin of Variety take it from here: The members of long-running rock band Journey have long had fractious relations, […]