Harold reminds us, ultimately, that there is much wonder and joy in imagining our favorite things and dreaming of them with wild and reckless abandon.
Archives for November 2024
Happy Thanksgiving!
The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog is taking some time off over the holiday weekend. See you on Monday!
Giving Thanks
The true spirit of Thanksgiving isn’t about the turkey
Review: Christian anti-liberals
Who needs religious pluralism?
The Bonhoeffer family is considering legal action against Eric Metaxas
Back in October we published a post titled “Bonhoeffer family to Eric Metaxas: “We are horrified to see how the legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is…being distorted and misused…” The post included two open letters criticizing Christian Right pundit Eric Metaxas’s […]
Current writer and novelist, Fred Durbin, featured in USA Today
Fred Durbin is part of the typewriter revolution!
Academics have a lot to be thankful for
Our annual Thanksgiving tradition here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. I wrote this Inside Higher Ed piece on gratitude in November 2008. I think it still holds up. It was a typical 1970s weekday evening. The sky was growing dark and I, an […]
REVIEW: The Catholic Kids’ Cookbook
The joy of cooking is for kids too
Belated book suggestions
Jon Schaff recommends two new books: Miles Smith, Religion and Republic; and Luke Burgis, Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
Reverend William Barber on the election
William Barber has been described as “the closest person we have to MLK.” John Blake of CNN recently interviewed the leader of the Poor People’s Campaign. A taste: Critics say Democrats are elitist and look down on working-class people. What do you […]
The Spirit of Madison Square Garden, Then and Now
The arc of the political universe is long, but it bends towards the common man
To go or not to go: graduate school
Graduate school in the humanities is a gamble.
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Trump’s cabinet picks in historical context.’ Ken Burns on 50 years of George Will. Manisha Sinha reviews Robert Blackburn’s The Reckoning: From the Second Slavery to Abolition, 1776-1888. The congressman […]
Why did New Testament scholar Richard Hays change his mind about gay marriage?
One rarely sees this kind of conversation in the pages of The New York Times. Peter Wehner interviews Duke Divinity School professor Richard Hays about why he changed his mind on gay marriage. Here is a taste of the interview: […]
Should felons be eligible for office?
Medieval historian Beth Allison Barr recently wrote: Current contributing editor and American historian John Haas sent along this response: I hear this sentiment from a lot of people, who just assume a blanket rule barring convicted felons from holding office […]
Election Day was 18 days ago. What are evangelicals saying?
Christian conservative talk show host Steve Deace supported Ron DeSantis during the GOP primary season. But Trump’s cabinet picks have satisfied all his objections. Here is his entire tweet: I backed DeSantis in the primary because Trump showed no remorse/awareness […]
The “Brahmin left” thinks the working class are idiots. “Thinking and behaving this way just strengthens the far right.”
Over at Jacobin, Edward Engelen interviews Joan C. Williams (White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America) and Thomas Frank (What’s the Matter with Kansas and Listen Liberal) about the working class and the 2024 election. Here is a taste: […]
Worker solidarity and electoral victories “may not be possible without the support of people who might have all sorts of contradictory, even reactionary, views.”
I am not sure I am completely board with Bhaskar Sunkara’s piece at Jacobin, but it gave me a lot to think about: The Democrats went from being the party of justice and stability to the party of meritocracy and […]
Getting Along
What horrifies me leaves you unconcerned. Why?
Election Day was 17 days ago. What are evangelicals saying?
“Sunday came for Tony Campolo.” Steve Rabey helped Campolo write his memoir. It is coming out in February with Eerdmans. Here is a taste of Rabey’s piece on Campolo at Baptist News Global: Tony Campolo, an influential Christian pastor, professor, author, […]