In the wake of yesterday's mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, Chris spent Reformation Sunday thinking about one of Martin Luther's ugliest legacies. Read more
In the wake of yesterday's mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, Chris spent Reformation Sunday thinking about one of Martin Luther's ugliest legacies. Read more
We are presently commemorating the centennial of the end of the First World War, and , that year of 1918 proved to be a moment of apocalyptic expectations around the world. Really unexpected and normally secular-minded authors were using extraordinary messianic and millenarian ideas, many of which would be appropriated by rising political movements of all shades. Among others, I have written about Aleksandr Blok and W. B. Yeats, and also the 1920 blockbuster film of Four Horsemen of the... Read more
A blog post sometimes serves as a forum to try out an idea that is not yet fully formed. Sometimes those ideas turn out to be entirely wrong. Two months ago, I wrote about a painting of Rebecca Rawson I had seen at the New England Historical and Genealogical Society Library in Boston. The painting’s caption briefly narrated her sad fate. The daughter of Massachusetts Bay colonial secretary Edward Rawson, Rebecca married a man who presented himself as Thomas Hale,... Read more
David Swartz interviews Melani McAlister about her new book Read more
Like his hero Charles Lindbergh, astronaut Neil Armstrong defied conventional categories of religious belief and disbelief. Read more
For pleasure reading, I have lately been dipping into James Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson. With the Penguin edition at 1245 pages, it can be an intimidating book to begin. But it is well worth the effort. The language is resplendent; the portrait of Johnson, unrivaled; and the insights into eighteenth-century intellectual life, vivid and compelling. Here are some tidbits, often of Boswell quoting Johnson: On the difficulty of finding a life’s vocation: “Life is not long, and too much... Read more
I recently described the problems that occur in making and understanding social statistics. Now I want to apply some of these lessons to religious numbers, to understanding (for instance) the rise and fall of particular churches. These comments apply particularly to understanding Christian numbers in the world at large, compared with the other great faiths. We often read figures that particular churches have X million members. Some of the problems with such statistics are obvious enough, especially the idea that... Read more
Throughout U.S. history, “public charge” rules have been a powerful instrument of excluding immigrants on the basis of their poverty–and also on the basis of their religion, race, and ethnicity. Last month, the Trump administration announced controversial plans to change the rules for 382,000 immigrants who use public assistance. Under these proposed changes, legal immigrants who lawfully use programs such as food assistance and Section 8 housing could be deemed a “public charge” and therefore denied a green card... Read more
The same afternoon Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court, one of my friends sent me a link to a devotional series for married couples from Desiring God. My heart just sank. This is how it was tweeted on October 5, 2018: “She submits. He sacrifices. She follows. He leads. She affirms. He initiates. They both reflect Jesus.” The devotional book, Happily Ever After: Finding Grace in the Messes of Marriage, was a free digital download last weekend. I don’t... Read more
Historians often celebrate the value of empathy. But a recent talk about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church leads guest-blogger Elesha Coffman to consider the importance of disgust and lament as well. Read more
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