Archives for February 2025

Commonplace Book #336

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In the Protestant age, the promotion of Christian virtue ran parallel to the promotion of democracy but usually could be distinguished from it. Bringing you to accept Jesus as your personal savior had nothing necessarily to do with bringing you […]

This could only happen in the 1970s

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In 1976, CBS gave actor Telly Savalas a variety show. Only in the 1970s could a Savalas dramatic reading of the Bread song “If,” complete with an image of a model’s head staring at him, make it to prime time […]

Trump and the “spoils system”

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Over at CNN, Zachary Wolf interviews Andrew Jackson scholar Daniel Feller on comparisons on the “spoils system.” Here is a taste: WOLF: You’ve written extensively about the spoils system. How would you describe it to Americans today? FELLER: It is a system […]

“I think of churches as belonging to an eternal country”

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27 Christian and Jewish groups are suing the Trump administration. Here is the Associated Press: More than two-dozen Christian and Jewish groups representing millions of Americans — ranging from the Episcopal Church and the Union for Reform Judaism to the […]

Commonplace Book #335

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I had actually arrived at the conclusion that if there was any good life, and freedom from insecurity, and beauty, and knowledge, or leisure, then the men who did the world’s dirty, sweaty, toilsome, risky work, and the women who […]

Enjoy full access to CURRENT

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As we close up shop here a Current, we invite you to explore what we’ve done over the past four years. No more paywall! Non-members now have access to: Enjoy!

On the end of CURRENT

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Today the founders of Current sent an email to our members. Here is a taste of that email: Dear Current Members, We are writing today with some sad news. After much deliberation, we have decided to bring an end to Current. It was […]

Commonplace Book #334

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But my faith in Socialism (to which I think I can say my entire life bears testimony) has remained more alive than ever in me. In its essence, it has gone back to what it was when I first revolted […]

MAGA sets its sights on Wheaton College

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Have you heard about this dustup? Read Kathryn Post’s piece at Religion News Service. Here is a taste: On Friday (Feb. 7), Wheaton College, the evangelical Christian school outside Chicago, publicly congratulated Russell Vought, a conservative activist and architect of Project 2025 […]

Commonplace Book #333

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What struck me most about the Russian Communists, even in such really exceptional personalities as Lenin and Trotsky, was their utter incapacity to be fair in discussing opinions that conflicted with their own. The adversary simply for daring to contradict, […]