The bottom line is that the fate of poor and working-class African Americans–who are unquestionably overrepresented among neoliberalism’s victims–is linked to that of other poor and working-class Americans. Our road to a more just society for African Americans and everyone […]
Archives for 2023
Rod Dreher in Hungary: “blogging and backtracking”
Here is Hungarian writer Balázs Gulyás on the mess the conservative blogger is making in Hungary: Last week, Rod Dreher, the American author now living in Hungary, caused a diplomatic scandal that has gone largely unnoticed in his home country. […]
The Organization of American Historians responds to the Florida controversy over AP African American Studies
Here is the statement: Last week we learned of the extraordinary decision by Florida’s Department of Education to reject the College Board’s Advanced Placement course on African American Studies in the state’s high schools. Claiming that the course violates Florida […]
College in the age of A.I.
New York Times columnist David Brooks encourages college students to take courses and learn to think in ways that “machines will not replicate.” Here is a taste: If, say, you’re a college student preparing for life in an A.I. world, […]
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: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Arena blog:
Equity and Justice at a Harvard Abortion Conference
Last week I attended a conference on abortion that was held at Harvard University. It was a fascinating conference, partly because it brought together both supporters and opponents of legal abortion who in many cases shared a belief in expanded […]
The Promise and Peril of David French’s New York Times Perch
French’s ascent reflects the nation’s zeitgeist. Will he be able to resist it?
It was only a matter of time: Jair Bolsonaro and Charlie Kirk join forces
Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro is in Florida right now and he wants to stay longer. This makes sense for the Trump-inspired former leader. After all, some of his followers recently tried to storm the Brazilian capitol with the hopes […]
Some evangelicals will be tempted to support Trump in 2024 if it means striking a blow to the LGBTQ community
When Donald Trump was president he said very little about gay marriage and other LGBTQ issues. But when he did speak about the LGBTQ community it was usually positive. In April 2016, The New York Times published a piece by […]
Commonplace Book #236
There they found a small book in which was written the life of Antony. One of them began to read it, marveled at it, was inflamed by it. While we was actually reading he had begun to think how he […]
Evangelical roundup for February 2, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? How evangelicals became climate skeptics. Evangelicals as “second class conservatives.” Spanish evangelicals gather. Evangelicals and manhood. Tim Keller charts his course: Southern Baptist pro-lifers in New Mexico. More on Bruxy Cavey and scandal at […]
Complicity and the Failure to Care
In December 2022, one of the biggest international news stories was the conviction of a 97-year-old German woman for being accessory to murder during the Holocaust. She was a teenager at the time of her crimes, 1943-1945, but she was […]
What Would Ernie Think?
Ernest L. Boyer’s vision for Christian higher education is on the verge of collapse
A historian takes a close look at Advanced Placement African American Studies
Many of you are following the debate in Florida over the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies courses. If you are not familiar with this controversy, get up to speed here and here. Over at Politico, historian Jonatan Zeitz […]
Poll: Republicans want to move on from Trump
The poll was commissioned by the conservative website The Bulwark. Here is a taste of Sarah Longwell’s summary: We polled three different scenarios and each showed Trump locked between 28 and 30 percent support from Republican primary voters: There’s a […]
Danielle Allen wants America to “pull together”
Harvard political philosopher Danielle Allen believes the United States “is in desperate need of democracy renovation” and she wants to devote her Washington Post column to get us thinking about how to pull it off. We at Current will be […]
Commonplace Book #235
But tell me, Lord, You who alone reign without arrogance, because You alone are the true Lord who have no Lord: tell me whether a third kind of temptation has passed from me or can it ever pass wholly in […]
The Author’s Corner with Amy Kohout
Amy Kohout is Associate Professor of History at Colorado College. This interview is based on her new book, Taking the Field: Soldiers, Nature, and Empire on American Frontiers (University of Nebraska Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write Taking the […]
Welcome to the Arena
In his essay that launched Current in 2021, Eric Miller exhorted readers and writers to join him “In the Arena” and have some intellectual fun in exploring topics that are, most of the time, quite serious. And, indeed, in a […]
White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement
Turning away from past errors requires more evangelical theology—not less