John K. Bardes is Assistant Professor of History at Louisiana State University. This interview is based on his new book, The Carceral City: Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930 (University of North Carolina Press, 2024). […]
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:
What was it like to be Joan Didion’s personal assistant?
Here is a taste of an excerpt of Cory Leadbeater’s memoir, The Uptown Local: Joy, Death, and Joan Didion: In the fall of 2013, my days and nights were wonderful and simple. I would wake in the morning to find […]
Rudy Giuliani to MAGA evangelicals: Fani Willis is a “ho”
Back in 2007, when Rudy Giuliani was a front-runner for the GOP nomination for President of the United States, evangelicals tried to stop him. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission said that he could […]
Southern Baptists offer Trump advice on his VP pick
Politico reporters Adam Wren and Megan Messerly asked Southern Baptist messengers in Indianapolis who they think Trump should pick as his running mate. Here is a taste of their piece: “I think evangelicals will generally, by and large, vote for […]
Ishmael Reed to Cornel West: “Are you sure you want to help install a dictatorship?”
The work of Ishmael Reed got on my radar screen after he started criticizing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical Hamilton. In fact, Reed was so critical of Hamilton that he wrote an entire play titled The Haunting of Lin-Manuel Miranda (2019). […]
Rick Reilly wants to fly the American flag
The other day I got a letter in the mail from a Christian non-profit organization that included a tiny American flag on a stick. I took it outside and planted it in a small flower patch in front of my […]
Trump court evangelical Mark Burns advances to a runoff for the GOP nomination in South Carolina’s 3rd Congressional District
Readers of this blog know pastor Mark Burns. In July 2016, he offered a prayer at the GOP National Convention. He asked God to defeat the “liberal democrats” and said that the Republican Party is the “conservative party under God.” […]
Anti-abortion advocates want to keep a federal ban on abortion in the GOP platform despite Trump’s views
Donald Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, believes that the issue of abortion in a post-Roe v. Wade America should be decided by the states. In other words, he does not support a federal ban on abortion. But here’s […]
Jimmy Carter approaches 16 months in hospice care
Here is Meghan Overdeep at Southern Living: As Jimmy Carter nears his 16th month in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia, his grandson, Jason Carter, says there’s “really been no change” in the former president’s condition. Jason, 48, the oldest of […]
A Palestinian Baptist laments the Southern Baptist Convention’s decisions on the Middle East
Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and a member of Amman Baptist Church in Jordan. He runs a news website that covers the Christian community in Jordan and the Palestinian territories. He is also a 1975 graduate of Messiah […]
The Southern Baptist Convention messengers reject the so-called “Law Amendment”
Today at their annual meeting in Indianapolis the Southern Baptist Convention rejected an amendment that would change the denomination’s constitution to clarify that the only kind of church in friendly cooperation with the convention is one that “affirms, appoints, or […]
Heer: “Unlike Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Donald Trump will never be a traitor to his class. He is, in truth, an accurate embodiment of it.”
According to the BBC, American billionaires are “rallying behind Trump” in the wake of his felony conviction. Jeet Heer of The Nation has some thoughts on that. A taste: Trump’s wealthy supporters are not going to be convinced by the […]
The Author’s Corner with Rebecca Wellington
Rebecca Wellington is a Clinical Instructor and Director of Field Placements in the School of Education at the University of Puget Sound. This interview is based on her new book, Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption […]
Mike Pence on Joe Biden: “I can’t think of a thing he’s done that I agree with”
Mike Pence spoke to the Southern Baptists in Indianapolis today. Here is Adele Banks at Religion News Service: Former Vice President Mike Pence addressed Southern Baptists at a luncheon event focused on public service where he criticized President Joe Biden, […]
If you want to get a sense of the state of conservative Christianity in America, check out the responses to David French’s recent New York Times piece
On Sunday we covered David French’s New York Times piece on getting canceled–literally canceled–by his former church, the Presbyterian Church in America. In that piece, we included some survey data I collected back in 2020 about how Trump, politics generally, […]
“The success narratives of modern liberal life leave little room for having a family.”
Here is Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman at The New York Times: For young, secular, politically progressive men and women, having children has become something of an afterthought. Liberal conventional wisdom encourages people to spend their 20s on journeys of […]
“Don’t want more immigrants in this country? Then tell grandma she can never retire.”
Here is Catherine Rampell at The Washington Post: As I’ve noted before, immigrants are driving the U.S. economic boom. That is: The United States has escaped recession, hiring growth has exceeded expectation, and inflation has cooled faster than predicted — all […]
$4000 for a book review at The New York Review of Books?
Christine Smallwood reflects on the practice of book reviewing. Here is a taste: Whatever is going on in the life of the critic is going to show up in her reading; it can’t not. Reading, writing, and thinking have experiential […]
The director of Liberty University’s Standing for Freedom Center denounces “moral chaos” at other schools.
You really can’t make this stuff-up. Here is Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana reporting on Ryan Helfenbein’s speech at today’s MAGA-sideshow in Indianapolis. Helfenbein is a Vice President at Liberty University and director of the Standing for Freedom Center at […]