In the minds of [writer Jonathan] Taplin and his like, the adjective “white” implies racism; “male,” in combination with “white,” “rural,” and “old,” implies sexism; “rural” implies backwardness, stupidity, and the degradation of “mind-numbing” physical work; and “old” implies political […]
Archives for February 2025
REVIEW: Two-Step Devil
In her new novel, Jamie Quatro turns against facsimile for the sake of reality itself
Interview: Thomas S. Kidd on ‘Christian History: From the Reformation to the Present’
“I wanted to center the book on the history of Christianity as believed and lived by everyday pastors, Christians, and churches.”
Commonplace Book #328
The racist argument has always been so simple as to need no comprehending. It simply divides the two categories, white people and black people, by a line theoretically straight, and opposes one category to the other. The actual history of […]
REVIEW: Glimmers of Truth
We need a theology of fiction
Ronald Reagan on tariffs
April 27, 1987: Context
Interview: Jesse Covington, Bryan T. McGraw, and Micah Watson on Hopeful Realism
Micah Watson: “we’re convinced God calls us to love our neighbors and that can–and at times should–include loving our neighbors through politics.”
Commonplace Book #327
People who hate all Confederates, it seems to me, are oversimplifying themselves in order to do so. They seem to be war propogandists looking for a war, relishing the division of people into abstract or stereotypical categories of Good and […]
REVIEW: California’s Pilgrimage
What’s so special about the Golden State?
CURRENT Managing Editor Nadya Williams wins public life fellowship
Congratulations to Nadya Williams for her selection as Center for Christianity & Public Life “Public Life Fellowship.” The Public Life Fellowship Program is a nine-month program serving an intergenerational class of Christians interested in intensive, community-based learning about the intersection […]
Commonplace Book #326
The trouble with anti-elitism is not that elites do not exist. It is that they exist everywhere, in every movement and party, on all sides. A mere revolt against elites makes a politics stupid. The important question is what the […]
Current winter books week is here!
All books, all week.
The Author’s Corner with Matthew J. Tuininga
Matthew J. Tuininga is Professor of Christian Ethics and the History of Christianity at Calvin Theological Seminary. This interview is based on his new book, The Wars of the Lord: The Puritan Conquest of America’s First People (Oxford University Press, […]
REVIEW: Slave Trading in the Civil War South
The demands of capital savaged hope
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Left-liberal fractures David Brooks on stupidity William E. Leuchtenburg, RIP Steven Mintz on the struggle between populism and progressivism Siva Vaidhyanathan reviews Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation David Brooks on […]
Commonplace Book #325
If! Where are the believers who say if? In my own adventures in the religious life, nothing has disaffected me more than the certainty with which believers speak about occult entities and forces. The clarity is arrogant. But there is […]
Commonplace Book #324
I am talking with a former professor of mine. She is telling me that she believes that part of our job as teachers of undergraduates is to help our students, as she puts it, “instrumentalize” the things they learn from […]