In case you haven’t heard, the Trump White House has removed a searchable database of January 6, 2021 cases from the Department of Justice website. Here is Alec MacGillis at Pro Publica: TheĀ removal of the databaseĀ happened…quietly, but it is worthy […]
What happened to the Kennedys?
Yesterday Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as the Health and Human Services secretary. Over at Politico, Peter S. Canellos wonders what his uncle Teddy might think. Here is a taste: When the late Sen. Ted Kennedy hired a […]
David Brooks: “Trump really seems not to give a crap about the working class”
Here is The New York Times columnist: Over the past 20 years or so many of us social observer types have been writing about the horrific chasms separating the educated class (people with college degrees) from the working class (people […]
When it comes to religious history and public theology, J.D. Vance is “in over his head.”
Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter gives the Vice President of the United States a history lesson and a lesson in historical thinking. Vice President JD Vance spoke at theĀ International Religious Freedom SummitĀ last week. There was much in […]
Commonplace Book #337
I think you can get to a point where nihilism, if that’s the right word, is overwhelming, and the basic laws that society has set up–either religious or social laws–become meaningless. Things just get really dark. You lose those constraints, […]
Commonplace Book #336
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 […]
The Trump wrecking ball keeps swinging. What are evangelicals saying?
MAGA prophet Lance Wallnau once claimed that God told him that Donald Trump “is a wrecking ball to the spirit of political correctness.” Well, it looks the prophecy came true. The new president, with the help of Elon Musk, is […]
This could only happen in the 1970s
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”
Over at CNN, Zachary Wolf interviews Andrew Jackson scholar Daniel Feller on comparisons on the “spoils system.” Here is a taste: WOLF:Ā Youāve written extensively about the spoils system. How would you describe it to Americans today? FELLER:Ā It is a system […]
“I think of churches as belonging to an eternal country”
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 ā ranging from the Episcopal Church and the Union for Reform Judaism to the […]
Commonplace Book #335
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 […]
Why are conservative evangelicals attacking the “He Gets Us” Super Bowl ad?
As I wrote yesterday, MAGA evangelicals need to invent controversies so they have something to talk about. They thrive on outrage. “Likes” and reposts translate into more followers, more influence, and more money. Take, for example, the response of some […]
Enjoy full access to CURRENT
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
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 […]
The problem with J.D. Vance’s Catholicism
Here is Elizabeth Bruenig at The Atlantic: Late last month, hundreds of leaders from Catholic relief and aid organizations met for the annual Catholic Social Ministry Gathering in Washington, D.C. What ensued was āa scene of real panic,ā Stephen Schneck, […]
Commonplace Book #334
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
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
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, […]
Roads Not Taken: Evangelicals and Politics, 1998-2006
Here is a taste of a lecture I gave last week at the University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio. Scroll back to watch the entire lecture.
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Has capitalism has killed the humanities? Book blurbs Peter Kolchin, historian of slavery, RIP David French on Trump and the American founding The son of an evangelical ministers came out. […]