At least fifteen kids dead. (Addendum: Now CNN is reporting 18 dead–mostly 2nd and 3rd graders). Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut speaks for many of us:...
Way of Improvement
It’s going to be an “old school E Street band lengthy tour”
Get up to speed here. Springsteen describes it as a “full-tilt rock and roll show.” Here is Springsteen on E Street Radio:...
A word to Southern Baptist culture warriors: Please shut your mouths and start dealing with the systemic immorality in your own house
I am guessing a lot of the Southern Baptist theobros and others will be upset with the title of this post. But it was all that came to mind after I received a note from an old friend from Bible...
The roots of our school wars
Over at Politico, historian Joshua Zeitz traces the roots of our school battles to the 1925 Scopes Trial. Here is a taste: At first glance, today’s school wars seem like a cut and dried case of modernity versus tradition, secularism...
More responses to the Southern Baptist sexual abuse report
We gathered some very early responses here. These are responses we have seen since Sunday night: JOURNALISM: Adelle Banks of Religion News Service has a timeline. Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias at The New York Times. Some nice context here....
Thursday night with the North Jersey Civil War Roundtable
Looking forward to this ZOOM talk. Request link by Tuesday, May 24 at NJCivilWarRT@aol.com This is a free event and open to the public. SPEAKER AND PROGRAM “BOTH PRAYED TO THE SAME GOD” PRESENTED BY PROF. JOHN FEA The Civil War...
Controversial preacher Greg Locke gives up his church’s tax-exempt status
Some of you remember this from last week: This is a clear violation of the Johnson Amendment of the United States tax code. Clergy are not permitted to endorse candidates and still keep the tax-exempt status of their churches. Americans...
Systemic immorality or just 700+ bad apples?
Shane Claiborne gets the tweet of the day: Context....
Springsteen announces 2023 world tour!
Here is the press release: Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band will mark their return to the road in early February, 2023 with a string of to-be-announced US arena dates, followed by European stadium shows kicking off on April...
“The scale of malfeasance is truly shocking”
Michael Gerson responds to the Southern Baptist sexual abuse scandal. Here is a taste of his Washington Post column: In nearly 300 pages, a third-party investigator has produced the Warren Commission report, the 9/11 Commission report, of Southern Baptist Christianity. And the scale of...
The Author’s Corner with Josiah Rector
Josiah Rector is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Houston. This interview is based on his new book, Toxic Debt: An Environmental Justice History of Detroit (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write...
Evangelical roundup for May 23, 2022
What is happening in Evangelical land? Syke Jethani just triggered Rod Dreher Shane returns to his bus: Shane learns something about Mastriano: The artist behind Chick Tracts has died Tim Keller quotes church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette: Ruth Graham on...
The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee’s third-party abuse investigation report was just released. It’s horrifying.
Here is Kate Shellnut at Christianity Today: Armed with a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, Southern Baptist leaders chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits rather than protect the people in their churches from further abuse. Survivors,...
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Dominic Green reviews Richard Cohen, Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past. Lewis Lapham interviews Cohen here Caitlin Flanagan on the trail of Joan Didion George Will offers the...
Eastern University alumni ask university to rescind Doug Mastriano’s 2009 “Alumnus of the Year” award
Frankly, I am surprised Eastern, a Christian college with a rather progressive political history–think Bryan Stevenson, Shane Claiborne, Roberta Hestenes, Ron Sider, Tony Campolo–would give Mastriano such an award. The committee must not have known about this 2001 paper. Here...
On Doug Mastriano’s 2001 paper “The Civilian Putsch of 2018”
Here is Greg Jaffee of The Washington Post with some context: Two decades before he was Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor, Doug Mastriano warned in a master’s thesis that the United States was vulnerable to a left-wing “Hitlerian Putsch” that would begin...
“Economically vulnerable people of color are significantly more anti-abortion than rich white folks are”
Here is Fordham University moral philosopher Charles Camosy at Religion News Service: Stop me if you’ve heard claims like these since Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion was leaked: “We need to center the stories of the economically vulnerable and...
Ed Ayers takes “History on the Road”
Learn all about Ed and Abby Ayers‘s “Discovery of America Tour’ here. A taste: My wife and I are embarking on a journey. We are looking for traces of America’s past from the first six decades of the 19th century,...
Friends of Grove City College apologize to those hurt by the school’s “anti-woke” Board of Trustees
Here is the Facebook petition: The signers of this petition are students, alumni, parents, current or former employees, as well as people concerned with the continued healthy academic environment of Grove City College. We are grieving following the actions of the...
Should I revise my interpretation of Springsteen’s “House of 1000s Guitars”?
Back in 2020, shortly after the release of Bruce Springsteen’s album Letter to You, I offered an interpretation of the song “House of 1000 Guitars.” It was a fairly popular post and I got some nice feedback from Springsteen fans....