A few things online that caught my attention this week: Coffee and happiness Putin and God The GOP as the W.W.E. A Black professor in an “anti-racist hell.” And more here. Charles Mathewes reviews Francis Fukuyama’s Liberalism and Its Discontents […]
Way of Improvement
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Arena blog:
The Author’s Corner with Thomas Sheppard
Thomas Sheppard is Assistant Professor of Military History at the Marine Corps University Command and Staff College in Quantico, Virginia. This interview is based on his book, Commanding Petty Despots: The American Navy in the New Republic (Naval Institute Press, […]
Our Asbury Revival roundups come to an end. Thanks for reading.
While I am sympathetic to the spiritual experience that took place over the last two weeks at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, I tried to cover the revival here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home as a curator or […]
Asbury University revival roundup: February 23, 2023 (10:50PM)
Read all of these posts , including the original post (covering Day 1 to Day 3 of the revival), here. This is the last night of services at Asbury University. Tonight was the Collegiate Day of Prayer. Asbury was scheduled to host this […]
A conversation on Wendell Berry’s The Need to be Whole
Literary scholar Jeff Bilbro and philosopher Josh Hochschild discuss Wendell Berry’s controversial book The Need to be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice. The event is sponsored by the National Association of Scholars. Watch:
Ron DeSantis wrote a book about the founding fathers
The full title is Dreams From Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama. Historian David Waldstreicher read it. Here is a taste of his piece at The Atlantic: History works for Ron Desantis as an argument. It would […]
The Author’s Corner with W. Dale Weeks
W. Dale Weeks is Instructor of History at Blinn College. This interview is based on his new book, Cherokee Civil Warrior: Chief John Ross and the Struggle for Tribal Sovereignty (University of Oklahoma Press, 2023). JF: What led you to […]
Evangelical roundup for February 23, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical Land? For those interested in the Asbury Revival, we are covering it extensively here. Russell Moore talks to Yahoo News reporter Jon Ward about the latter’s new book. The New York Times on the Southern Baptist […]
Asbury University revival roundup: February 22, 2023 (10:30PM)
Read all of these posts , including the original post (covering Day 1 to Day 3 of the revival), here. A photo essay from Asbury University sociologist Lisa Weaver Swartz: Jennifer posts a pic from Texas A&M: Cayla’s son: Saturday at Asbury’s Revival, […]
Asbury University revival roundup: February 22, 2023 (12:20PM)
Read all of these posts , including the original post (covering Day 1 to Day 3 of the revival), here. Today: On Tuesday and Wednesday, February 21-22, the Outpouring services in Hughes Auditorium are reserved for participants 16-25 years old. However, a public live […]
In defense of physical books
Here is Ben Sixsmith, editor of The Critic: A couple of years ago, I had almost my entire collection of books shipped from England to Poland. They had been lurking in my dad’s attic but he understandably decided that he […]
Two divergent explanations of Southern inequality
Over at Dissent, political scientist Jared Loggins reviews Adolph Reed’s The South: Jim Crow and Its Afterlives and Imani Perry’s South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon Line to Understand the Soul of a Nation. (See my review of […]
Ed Stetzer leaves Wheaton College for Talbot School of Theology
Some news from the world of American evangelicalism: Biola University is announcing that Dr. Ed Stetzer will assume the role of Dean of Talbot School of Theology beginning July 2, 2023. “For decades, Dr. Ed Stetzer’s visionary presence — most […]
Jimmy Carter: “Niebuhrian Southern Baptist”
As Carter moves into hospice care, biographer Kai Bird reflects on his presidency. Here is a taste of his New York Times piece, “Jimmy Carter’s Presidency Was Not What You Think“: Mr. Carter remains the most misunderstood president of the […]
Southern Baptists give Saddleback the boot. What are people saying?
Here is the Associated Press: The Southern Baptist Convention on Tuesday ousted its second-largest congregation — Saddleback Church, the renowned California megachurch founded by pastor and best-selling author Rick Warren — for having a woman pastor. The vote by the convention’s Executive Committee […]
Randall Balmer on the closing of his alma mater
On Monday we called your attention to the closing of Trinity College, the undergraduate college of Trinity International University. In that piece I noted that Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Dartmouth College and one of our best chroniclers of […]
Asbury University revival roundup: February 21, 2023 (7:55PM)
Read all of these posts , including the original post (covering Day 1 to Day 3 of the revival), here. Asbury’s director of strategic communication: A reminder that Asbury University is an institution of higher education: The president of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary […]
“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”: An annotation
Over at JSTOR Daily, Ed Simons offers an annotation of the famous 1741 sermon. A taste: Often remembered as the prototypical “fire and brimstone” sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” reflects the complicated religious background of eighteenth-century […]
Abraham Lincoln: Working class hero?
Everyone wants to claim Lincoln. Even socialists. Here is University of Arkansas history professor Matthew Stanley at Jacobin: Would Lincoln’s sincere hatred of the Slave Power have translated after the war to a critique of the Money Power and other […]