I’ve pointed this out before, but I will point it out again. Notice that Linus drops his security blanket when he says “fear not.”...
holiday posts
The original message behind the American Christmas was not very evangelical
Historian Daniel K. Williams, a Current contributing editor, explains in a recent piece at Christianity Today. A taste: Conservative evangelical Christians have sometimes been eager advocates of the modern campaign to “keep Christ in Christmas” and preserve the traditional religious meaning of...
Eugene Debs: “We never hear of Capital Day, not because Capital has no day, but because every day is Capital Day.”
OK–I realize I am a day late here, but if you read Eugene Debs‘s 1903 Labor Day message you will understand why that is OK. According to Debs, “The struggle in which we are now engaged will end only when...
Thomas Jefferson: hero or villain?
The title of this post is not, primarily, a historical question. It is primarily a moral question. We should keep the complexity of the past in mind as we celebrate Independence Day. Check out early American historian’s Jack Rakove‘s recent...
Song of the day
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How Thanksgiving became a capitalist holiday
In Monday’s Evangelical Roundup (available twice a week to Current patrons at the Surface level), I included a piece by Wallbuilders president Tim Barton in which he claims that the seventeenth-century Pilgrims defeated socialism. Here is Barton: We often think...
Good Friday, American style
Over at First Things, Raymond J. de Souza offers a brief history of Good Friday in the United States. Here is a taste: In most Christian-majority countries, Good Friday is a federal holiday—but not in the United States, even though...
Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
James Taylor:...
Merry Christmas!
I’ll be taking a few days off. Someone recently pointed out to me that Linus drops his security blanket in the middle of the speech.
The forgotten virtue of gratitude
Our annual Thanksgiving tradition here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. I wrote this Inside Higher Ed piece on gratitude in November 2008. –JF It was a typical 1970s weekday evening. The sky was growing dark and I, an elementary school student, was sitting at...
Song of the Day
Aaron Copland “Fanfare for the Common Man”:...
What Would George Washington Think About President’s Day Sales?
According to historian David Head at USA Today, Washington would have loved President’s Day sales! Presidents Day, like most American holidays, is a celebration of shopping. But unlike holidays such as Christmas or Thanksgiving, where the commercial spirit is a corruption...
A Tale of Two Marches on Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Here is what happened in Richmond, Virginia with the full support of the president. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLJMoplaT2g&w=560&h=315] The Democrat Party in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia are working hard to take away your 2nd Amendment rights. This is just the beginning....
What White Evangelicals Can Learn About Politics From the Civil Rights Movement
In June 2017, I spent ten days with my family and several colleagues from Messiah College traveling through the American South on a civil rights movement bus tour. Our trip took us to some of the most important sites...
Out of the Zoo: Holidays Make Us Historians
Annie Thorn is a sophomore history major from Kalamazoo, Michigan and our intern here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. As part of her internship she is writing a weekly column titled “Out of the Zoo.” It focuses on life as...
The Forgotten Virtue of Gratitude
Our annual Thanksgiving tradition here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. I wrote this Inside Higher Ed piece on gratitude in November 2008. –JF It was a typical 1970s weekday evening. The sky was growing dark and I, an elementary school student, was...
My 2013 Piece on Christmas at the *Pacific Standard*
Another magazine has bit the dust. Read Lloyd Grove’s piece at The Daily Beast on the end of the Pacific Standard. I wrote a piece for the Standard website back in December 2013. I don’t know if it will disappear or not, so I...
Breen: “George Washington Would Hate Trump’s July 4 Parade”
T.H. Breen brings the thunder: President Trump has invited the American people to what he claims will be the biggest and best Fourth of July celebration in the nation’s history. Influenced by the huge nationalist displays he witnessed in Europe,...
Make the Fourth of July Safe Again!
Over at Smithsonian.Com, history student Michael Waters tells the story of early 20th-century reformers and activists who were concerned that Independence Day celebrations were too dangerous. They championed a “Safe and Sane Fourth.” Here is a taste of his Waters’s piece:...
The Politicization of July 4th is as Old as the Republic
Is Trump politicizing Independence Day with his military parade and “Salute to America” speech? Of course he is. And, as historian Shira Lurie reminds us, this practice dates back to the country’s founding. Here is a taste of her Washington Post piece,...