At age 85, writer Joyce Carol Oates has “so many ideas.” Check out David Marchese’s interview with Oates at The New York Times. Here is a taste: How does support for the idea that diverse voices should be given primacy […]
Way of Improvement
The Author’s Corner with R. Douglas Hurt
R. Douglas Hurt is Professor of History at Purdue University. This interview is based on his new book, Agriculture in the Midwest, 1815–1900 (University of Nebraska Press, 2023). JF: What led you to write Agriculture in the Midwest, 1815-1900? DH: […]
Is former Maryland governor Larry Hogan running for president?
Back in March he said he wasn’t running. About two hours ago he posted this: If he does run, will it be as a Republican or the candidate of the “No Labels” movement? You may recall the recent rumors about […]
Trump indictment #3 is coming soon. How are people (including a few evangelicals) responding?
This time the indictment is for January 6th. (Still waiting on Georgia). CNN has some good coverage. The indictment is probably coming, perhaps in days. It looks like Trump is going to spend most of 2024 in court. Here is […]
“America’s commitment to independence shaped how Americans utilized the Bible from the very beginning.”
When you hear presidential candidates like Tim Scott and Mike Pence quote the Bible on the campaign trail for the purposes of advancing their political agendas, please realize that this is not a new thing. Here is a taste of […]
James Carville: “The only thing that Dr. West’s candidacy can do is help elect Donald Trump”
No one expects Cornel West to become the next president of the United States, but Anderson Cooper’s recent interview with West reveals why it is hard for a candidate of moral purity and prophetic sensibility to govern. Politics almost always […]
Should American historians seek to emulate Howard Zinn’s approach to popular history?
As some of you know, I am working on a three-volume project, geared to a general reading audience, on evangelicals and politics in the twentieth-first century. Sometimes I don’t know if I am doing journalism or writing history, but I […]
The Kings College is still open
Faculty are leaving and others are getting cut, but it looks like the The Kings College is still alive. Here is Meagan Saliashvili at Religion News Service: The last remaining evangelical Christian college in New York City, The King’s College, […]
Jack Hibbs: “If we were writing the Bible today, George Washington would be included”
In this video, podcast the pastor of the Calvary Church-Chino Hill (CA) reveals just how the Christian Right manipulates the past to promote its political agenda. I can’t tell whether these pastors are just ignorant or they are deliberately lying. […]
She helped Trump try to overthrow the 2020 election. Now she is supporting Ron DeSantis because Trump is too liberal
Some of you may know the name Jenna Ellis. If you read this blog regularly, you know that she was the lawyer who assisted Rudy Giuliani in trying to prove that there was widespread election fraud that allowed Joe Biden […]
“There’s a wall up and we can’t come in” and other things that happened at this weekend’s Charlie Kirk Trumpfest
It was called the “Turning Point USA Action Conference” and it was, in essence, a celebration of Donald Trump, Trumpism, and all things MAGA. I didn’t get a chance to watch much of it beyond Trump’s speech, but several people […]
Evangelical roundup for July 17, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Is Trump really the political savior of Iowa evangelicals? Megachurches are getting bigger. The Church of England divests from fossil fuels companies. Ed Stetzer on Pentecostals DeSantis and Iowa evangelicals Spanish evangelicals on Christian […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Good conversation A Midwestern childhood Should we be fighting climate change in the same way we fought the Nazis? Woody Guthrie: radical Are the rich really getting richer at the […]
Responding to the critics of my piece “Kid Gloves” (1619 Project)
It looks like my feature we published on Friday at Current received some attention on Twitter. I’m glad people are reading it and, for the most part, taking it seriously. For the record, here is everything I have written at […]
What I learned watching the BLAZE coverage of the Family Leadership Summit
On Friday July 14, Iowa evangelicals gathered to hear GOP presidential candidates speak at The Family Leadership Summitt. The event was sponsored by Bob VanderPlaats‘s Family Leader organization and hosted by Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host interviewed Tim […]
20 things I “learned” from watching Donald Trump’s speech tonight at the Turning Point USA event
He was the keynote speaker at Charlie Kirk’s Trumpfest. Here is what I “learned”: Here are some live comments on the Right Side Broadcasting Network stream of Trump’s speech:
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:
How you can support our work at Current
We often think about Current as a “little magazine.” In a piece on the tenth anniversary (1976) of the magazine Salmagundi, cultural critic Christopher Lasch (whose daughter Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn is a Current contributing editor) wrote: The so-called little magazine, which addresses neither the mass market nor an […]
The Author’s Corner with Jan Wim Buisman
Jan Wim Buisman is a retired Lecturer on the History of Christianity, now a Guest Researcher at the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR). This interview is based on his new book, Lightning in the Age of […]
Evangelical roundup for July 13, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Evangelical presidental candidates are coming to Iowa. Pentecostals A veteran United Methodist pastor on the state of evangelical Christianity. Evangelical women who support the mothers of LGBTQ kids. An Alabama megachurch opens a “pastoral […]