Happy July 4th from the Arena!
Archives for July 2023
Evangelical roundup for July 3, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Has marriage taken a backseat to gender issues among evangelicals? Rebecca Naylor, Southern Baptist missionary surgeon. When did male headship become the core to Southern Baptist identity? Shane Claiborne on 4th of July services: […]
Commonplace Book #273
The notion of identity, now so popular among those who look for it in gender and race and sexuality, implies the possibility of resolving the self in some binding manner. If Freud is right and the psyche is always churning, […]
Searching for Braver Angels
In praise of dissent
Lincoln’s model for reflective, humble patriotism
Today—the day before the Fourth of July—is the 160th anniversary of the end of the largest and most significant battle of the Civil War. There were more casualties in the Battle of Gettysburg than in any other battle of the […]
Victoria Amelina, January 1, 1986- July 1, 2023
On Tuesday of this past week, a Russian missile struck a crowded pizzeria in the city of Kramatorsk, Ukraine. One of those killed was an award-winning writer, Victoria Amelina. Here is an auto-biographical piece she wrote, “Expanding the Boundaries of […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Charles Arrowsmith reviews Peter Moore’s Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: Britain and the American Dream Jill Lepore on how to save the Constitution. Economic rights Aram Goudsouzian reviews […]
Commonplace Book #272
I love my students–I surely do. But there is no way I would want to be one of them, or part of what’s now being called “Generation Z.” They’re stepping into the arena grossly underequipped to fight: no sword, no […]
More reporting on the closing of Alliance University (Nyack College)
Here is Emily Belz at Christianity Today: Alliance University, a 140-year-old Christian & Missionary Alliance (CMA) school in New York City, will close on August 31 after years of financial struggles. Known for much of its history as Nyack College, […]
Commonplace Book #271
Make use of power? What a pernicious illusion. It’s power that makes use of us. Power is a difficult horse to lead: it goes where it must go, or rather, it goes where it can go or where it’s natural […]