Tara Westover on the context of her family's essential oils business Read more
Tara Westover on the context of her family's essential oils business Read more
American evangelicals and other Trump supporters have already wasted their "Bonhoeffer moment," argues Chris. But perhaps it's not too late to follow the example of another, more problematic German pastor. Read more
Amid the welter of truth claims in the modern academy, one towers above all others: empire and colonialism are bad—universally bad. Since Edward Said’s landmark Orientalism (1978), study after “post-colonial” study have arrived at this conclusion. Colonizers lorded it over the colonized, exploiting them economically, socially, culturally. The “White Man’s Burden” or Europe’s mission civilatrice were sanctimonious justifications for the ruthless suppression and mistreatment of native peoples in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Integral to this outlook is the... Read more
I have been writing about a recent visit to Ravenna, a place that can have a profound impact on the unsuspecting soul. Let me describe this, and suggest that the city may shortly be preparing for yet another kind of global spiritual event. Through the nineteenth century, foreign authors visited Ravenna, and some were moved to write about it, often in really bad verse (I’m looking at you, Oscar Wilde). The number of visitors swelled in the early twentieth century,... Read more
I live in New York City, which is the greatest city in the world, but the reality is that few things are easy here. Whether it’s enrolling a child in kindergarten, riding public transit to work, or paying the rent to keep a roof overhead, completing basic tasks can be surprisingly complicated for New Yorkers. This fact of life was made especially clear to me one sunny September afternoon in 2015, when I discovered that Rufus, my beloved thirteen-year-old Italian... Read more
I have served on academic faculty since 2003. I have participated in a LOT of job searches–believe you me. I have watched candidates perform exceptionally well during interviews, and I have watched candidates fall flat on their faces. For example, the teaching demonstration that included around 60 power point slides and was still going strong at 50 minutes when it was supposed to be limited to 20 minutes (yes this happened). Or the candidate who made so many factual errors... Read more
What is now the Mayo Clinic began with a partnership between Protestant doctors and Franciscan nuns - a partnership resented by anti-Catholic nativists. Read more
I have been describing the amazing churches and religious buildings of the city of Ravenna. Art historians devote whole careers to comprehending such works, but my goal here is rather different. I will rather suggest what we can learn from such places about how Christians for long centuries thought, believed and acted, and how visual arts featured in their lives and their devotion. Just what did all those art treasures mean to them? When we look at something like these... Read more
I recently fulfilled a lifetime ambition with a visit to the city of Ravenna, one of the world’s greatest centers of Christian art. I am still floored by the experience, so excuse me if I try to process it by means of writing. If you have ever opened a book about early Christian or medieval history, at least some of the illustrations were likely taken from a Ravenna location. In this column I will describe the city and just why... Read more
The most famous chain of events during what Americans came to call King Philip’s War began on February 10, 1676, when Nipmucs, Narragansetts, and Wampanoags attacked the Massachusetts town of Lancaster. About fifty settlers were either killed or taken captive. Of the latter, Mary Rowlandson earned lasting renown with her autobiographical The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, published in 1682 some six years after her redemption. Joseph Rowlandson, Lancaster’s minister, was in Boston at the time of the raid. When... Read more
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