Gaines M. Foster is Murphy J. Foster Professor of History Emeritus at Louisiana State University. This interview is based on his new book, The Limits of the Lost Cause: Essays on Civil War Memory (LSU Press, 2024). JF: What led […]
Way of Improvement
Willie Mays, RIP
Here is #647: Here is the start of the New York Times obit: Willie Mays, the spirited center fielder whose brilliance at the plate, in the field and on the basepaths for the Giants led many to call him the […]
The National Association of Evangelicals praises Biden’s executive action on undocumented immigrant’s spouses and children
Get up to speed here. Here is the National Association of Evangelicals release: The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) welcomes the announcement today that the United States will no longer deport the undocumented spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens […]
CURRENT keeps rolling along. We’d love your support!
As I’ve said multiple times at this blog, I hate asking for money. They didn’t teach me how to do this graduate school, but after three years of serving as the Executive Editor of Current I am realizing that these […]
The Summer-Fall speaking schedule is filling-up
I’m starting to get back on the road. Here are some of the places I am heading: Next week I’ll be in Boston studying the city’s colonial and revolutionary history with a great group of teachers from the Roanoke, Virginia […]
Is the Biden administration “demonic”?
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council thinks so: Sadly, this is the dominant form of evangelical political engagement these days. Politics as spiritual warfare. Historians like to talk about “contingency”–the choices people make that shape the future. There were […]
When evangelical leaders fail: Some thoughts from Augustine
Christianity Today news editor Daniel Silliman is trying to make sense of the recent spate of moral failures in evangelical leadership. Some good words here from Dan and Augustine: Today is not a day when I feel particularly optimistic about […]
“The divide within the Republican Party…is between people who know how to work within the existing system, and outsiders who want to overturn it.”
Alternative title: What is going on in Indiana gubernatorial politics? Here is Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times: The Indiana governor’s race should not, under normal circumstances, be remotely competitive. In 2020, Donald Trump won the state by 16 […]
The Author’s Corner with Richard E. Ocejo
Richard E. Ocejo is Professor of Sociology at John Jay College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. This interview is based on his new book, Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton […]
Juneteenth before Juneteenth
Historians Susannah J. Ural and Ann Marsh Daly tell the stories of Black men and women celebrating emancipation well before Juneteenth became a holiday. Here is a taste of their piece at The Atlantic: In a quiet corner of a library at […]
What happens when the “greatest” moment in your denomination’s history was orchestrated by a sexual abuser of boys?
This weekend we learned that Paul Pressler, the lawyer who co-led the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention and a sexual abuser of boys, passed away at the age of 94. He died on June 7. Baptist News Global […]
A Milwaukee brewery rolls out a new IPA after Trump’s comments about the city
Last week Donald Trump had some things to say about Milwaukee, the host of the GOP national convention where he will receive the Republican Party’s nomination for president in July. “Milwaukee, where we are having our convention,” Trump said, “is […]
Cornerstone University fires tenured professors and terminates all humanities and arts programs
I recently finished Rick Ostrander’s memoir focused on his career in evangelical higher education. Among Rick’s many stops in Christian college leadership was Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He served as provost at the university from 2009 to 2015. […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: George Packer visits Phoenix Regina Munch reviews Nathan Perl-Rosenthal’s The Age of Revolutions and the Generations Who Made It. What does J.D. Vance believe? The Joey Chestnut controversy The EP […]
CURRENT contributor Paul Luikart releases a new book of storiesÂ
From the J. New Books website: Paul Luikart’s The Realm of the Dog is a collection of stories. Masterfully written portraits of life; the mundane, the dangerous, the stark light of revelation, the dead and dying, hatred, love, and laughter. […]
Evangelical blast from the past
Source: Lancaster (PA) New Era, November 19, 1976. And for those who clicked on this post, here is a bonus from Campolo’s 1976 Congressional campaign. A “‘good man that nobody owns”: Source: The Pottstown (PA) Mercury, November 1, 1976.
This may be the best thing I have read on Trump
Back in June 2017, I wrote a post that linked to Rebecca Solnit‘s piece on Donald Trump titled “The Loneliness of Donald Trump.” At the time I said that “this may be the best thing I have read on Trump.” […]
Is for-profit journalism sustainable?
The editors of Current talk about this all the time and we hope to make some of our own news on this front soon. In the meantime, Stephen Prager makes some good points in his recent piece at Current Affairs […]
Bill Russell International Airport?
I am completely on board with Mark Leibovich’s proposal to change the name of Logan Airport to Bill Russell Airport. Leibovich make’s his argument today at The Atlantic. Here is a taste: Naming the airport for Russell would send a […]
The 70th anniversary of “under God”
Happy Flag Day! Seventy years ago today–June 14, 1954–the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance. Brian Kaylor has the full story at Baptist News Global. Here is a taste: George Docherty was a progressive Presbyterian minister serving […]