It’s official. The Trump presidency is over. The Biden presidency is here. Here are a few thoughts, with the help of my Twitter feed, on today’s inauguration ceremony: I began the day with a reminder. It’s been a long four...
A lot of people in the media today, especially those in the Trump camp, are talking about American greatness. Many evangelical Christians, who last time I checked believed in the existence of human sin, want to ignore their country’s past...
Over the last year I have received a lot of critical e-mails questioning my faith because I am not willing to assert that Donald Trump is God’s anointed servant to save America from the liberals (mostly Hillary Clinton and Barack...
Most of my students have never heard of Augustine of Hippo. Very few of them have read a 5th-century text. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when we discussed parts of Augustine’s Confessions in my Created and Called for Community...
This semester, for the first time in my eighteen-year career at Messiah College, I will not be teaching any history courses. Instead, I will be teaching three sections of a required first-year seminar titled “Created and Called for Community.” This...
In 2006, while serving as governor of Texas, Rick Perry was asked whether non-Christians will spend eternity in hell. “I don’t know that there’s any human being that has the ability to interpret what God and his final decision-making is...
Jamie Smith’s new book on St. Augustine looks great: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXXaM4gB1_M&w=560&h=315]...
Because sometimes you just need to listen to Born to Run: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxuThNgl3YA&w=560&h=315] “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you”–Augustine’s Confessions...
Peter Candler was a graduate student at Duke Divinity School on September 11, 2001. He was scheduled to give an 11:00am guest lecture in a theological class on St. Augustine’s City of God. He describes what happened on that day in...
Elizabeth Bruenig converted to Catholicism in 2014. Her decision to unite with the church of Rome came through her reading of St. Augustine. She describes her spiritual journey in a recent piece at America magazine. Here is a taste: Part of...
I just came across this article on historian and St. Augustine biographer Peter Brown in The Daily Princetonian. Here is a taste of Rudy Shao’s piece: Brown retired with the title of Philip and Beulah Rollins Professor of History in...
Chad Pecknold of the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C. is leading a “class” on St. Augustine that takes place entirely on Twitter. Here is a taste of a post on Pecknold’s experiment at the Catholic Herald: Students in professor...
A lot. Check out Alex Grant‘s piece, “City of God and the Ends of American Politics” at Christ & Pop Culture.” Here is a taste: At heart, the Democratic and Republican parties are each giving us a story about identity....
Yesterday our “quote of the day” came from Ta-Nehesi Coates’s reflections on historians and hope.Here is the quote I chose:.. I think that a writer wedded to “hope” is ultimately divorced from “truth.” Two creeds can’t occupy the same place...
Thanks for all of your comments on my post about Obama’s speech at the National Prayer Breakfast. I know that not all of the readers of The Way of Improvement Leads Home agree with my take on the speech, but...
Augustine of Hippo Brooks describes two types of fourth-century approaches to Catholic identity. The Donatists “believed the church needed to purify itself and return to its core identity.” Augustine of Hippo “wanted the church to go on the offense and...
Check out William Cavanaugh‘s lecture at Victoria University in New Zealand: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yiu2-kUNGI]...
Yes, it is true. Even St. Augustine commented on this bodily function. HT: David Swartz at Moral Minority (From City of God, xiv. 24) We do in fact find among human beings some individuals with natural abilities very different from […]
Garry Wills has a new book out on St. Augustine. It is entitled Augustine’s “Confessions”: A Biography (Princeton University Press). From what I can tell, Wills is trying to rescue the Confessions from scholars who seem to think that the...
