RIP, Kris Kristofferson
David Waldstreicher wins the 2024 George Washington Book Prize
Congrats to CUNY early American historian David Waldstreicher, the winner of the 2024 George Washington Book Prize for The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery. Here is the press release: David Waldstreicher has been awarded the […]
CURRENT is looking for a part-time business manager. Come work with us!
Current, an online journal of opinion and commentary, is looking for a part-time Business Manager. The Business Manager will: Current is a trim, shoestring operation with a small budget and few expenses. We strive to be good stewards of the […]
Cornerstone University appears to have stripped the “emeritus” status of a professor who is critical of an administration that surrounds itself with “bullet-proof glass.”
The drama continues at Cornerstone University. Get up to speed here. David L. Turner, a retired Cornerstone University professor, has also been chronicling the sad state of affairs at the Grand Rapids, Michigan Christian college. He spent thirty-two years on […]
Romance writing, sports journalism, and narrative history
I don’t think I have ever read a romance novel, but I have read a lot of sports journalism. Over at LitHub, Jamie Harrow chronicles the similarities between writing romance novels and writing about sports. It’s a really interesting piece. […]
For the record: If a flight attendant tells you to have a “blessed” evening while exiting an aircraft it is not a marker of “creeping Christian nationalism”
Sometimes those on the cultural left say the quiet part out loud. In doing so they reveal the same level of ignorance found on the MAGA right. Apparently Clara Jeffery, the editor of left-wing Mother Jones magazine, was offended when […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Is Marilynne Robinson “illiberal?” Samuel Moyn reviews two new books on “equality” Patrick Iber wonders if Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age of Extremes still holds up today Emily Dickinson’s house is […]
Trump on phone apps
Remember last year when Donald Trump asked, “What the hell is a Blizzard?“ I was reminded of this story today when I learned about the populist presidential candidate’s recent comment on phone apps. Apparently Trump doesn’t realize that his own […]
Seven Mountain Dominionist Lance Wallnau is hosting a ‘town hall” with JD Vance
Last weekend I was in Anderson, South Carolina speaking to a group of progressive Christians. I devoted one of my lectures to Christian nationalism and mentioned Lance Wallnau, one of the most prominent Seven Mountain Dominionists in the country. None […]
Dave Barry on how the 2024 election season is affecting his community
The humorist is part of a Washington Post forum that asked writers how the election is affecting their communities. Here is Barry’s answer: I don’t know if this is an accurate way to measure the enthusiasm surrounding the election, but: […]
Historian Patrick Joyce on peasants: “At the same time as the living watch over the dead, the dead watch over and care for the living”
Check out Gus Mitchell’s review of Patrick Joyce’s Remembering Peasants: A Personal History of a Vanished World. A taste: Joyce explores five key relationships of this peasant world: to the society of the village or commune, to the family and […]
“Culture is being hollowed out by technology, data, globalisation, bureaucracy, and consumerist individualism”
In his review of Olivier Roy’s The Crisis of Culture, Ian Leslie writes: Roy argues that culture in the sense we have understood it is being inexorably eroded. It’s not, as some of his countrymen believe, that one culture is […]
Prestigious New England boarding school offers free ride to families making under $150,000 a year
This is very cool. The prestigious Deerfield Academy, located in the historic village of Deerfield, Massachusetts (the home of the 1704 Indian raid made famous by John Demos’s book The Unredeemed Captive ), is offering free tuition and boarding to […]
40 days until Election Day. What are evangelicals saying?
Here is today’s evangelicals and politics roundup: Christianity Today asks whether there is a Christian candidate in this presidential election. A recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs survey found that about 2 in 10 white evangelicals “say the word […]
Photo of the day
Among the Jeffersonians
The chapter on Thomas Jefferson in my book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction is titled “Thomas Jefferson: Follower of Jesus.” In that chapter I discuss Jefferson’s attempt to model his life after the teachings of […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Robert Caro is writing 900 words a day on the last installment of his LBJ biography. Caro’s writing shed here. Caro and The Power Broker “The Fantasy World of Baseball” […]
See you this weekend in Anderson, South Carolina!
I will be in Anderson, SC this weekend for some lectures. My host is the Anderson Forum for Progressive Theology. Learn more here.
The Teamsters will not endorse Kamala Harris. Why?
We learned yesterday that the Teamsters will not endorse any candidate for President. Some of you will remember that Teamster President Sean O’Brien spoke at the Republican National Convention in July. The union also just released this poll: Over at […]
The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs opens the Center for the Study of Evangelicalism
Back in the day, there was a center at Wheaton College called the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. It closed in 2014. Today, there are few places devoted to the scholarly study of evangelical Christianity. Nor do many […]