Yesterday morning, I received a startling email from my sons’ Little League head coach: one of the assistant coaches, a father of their teammate, had unexpectedly died. The news had my husband and me reeling. We had just seen this dad at a team gathering after our last game. We had joked with him. He and I talked about whether we prefer people to pronounce our name in Spanish or English (he said either; I said Spanish). And now he’s gone.... Read more
We are shortly to encounter a major landmark in the history of Christianity, and indeed of the world’s religions more generally. Within a couple of years, probably as early as 2026, the number of Roman Catholics in Africa will match that of Europe. (I am speaking of Catholics, not of Christians more generally). Thereafter, the African figure will surge ahead of the European. Let me repeat that statement. By about 2026, there will be as many Catholics in Africa as... Read more
The song “Deportee” came on my radar researching folk singer Joan Baez’s support of Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers (UFW). She publicly performed the song at the memorial service for murdered farmworker Juan De La Cruz. This footage is from the documentary Fighting For Our Lives about the 1973 strike and labor battle with the Teamsters’ union. Baez’s music closes the documentary. In fact, “Deportee” appeared as a special accompanying album with her album Blessed Are… that came out in... Read more
In my February I talked about Untangling Critical Race Theory: What Christians Need to Know and Why it Matters by Ed Uszynski. In this post I want to continue reflecting on some of the gems in this very significant book that he says he wrote primarily to white evangelicals. Untangling chronologically walks the reader through the rise of Marxism, critical theory, and finally Critical Race Theory (CRT). For each, Uszynski explains the historical context, the issues they were addressing, and... Read more
It’s Lent: Let’s Go to the Wilderness Budget cuts in the US government have resulted in more folks paying attention to the National Parks recently. While arguments over which branches of government are more or less vital or efficient, my own conversations seem to reveal that the National Parks have bipartisan support. The importance of having swaths of land preserved from development and preserved for citizens to enjoy holds wide appeal. It seems a truism that we need wilderness areas... Read more
Today’s blog is a slightly expanded reprint of a post I did at this site a couple of years ago. The post seems so suitable for the Lenten season. In 2023, I published the book He Will Save You from the Deadly Pestilence: The Many Lives of Psalm 91. Many things make that psalm highly distinctive among Biblical passages, not least the fact that it alone, among scriptural texts, is quoted by Satan himself. But Satan makes an odd mistake,... Read more
In Support of Expansive Education I saw a debate play out in the comments of a friend from college’s social media post the other week. It’s probably a scenario we’re all familiar with: someone posts a picture or an article, often a fairly innocuous one, that touches on a subject people have strong opinions on. And then the comments section goes wild; a commenter accuses the original poster of walking away from “true Christian faith,” and then the proof-texting with... Read more
We are running out of prophecies. Let me explain. I have been writing about what seems to be the near-future likelihood of a Papal conclave, and the choice of a new Pope. For centuries, the assembled Fathers have made their choice through a mix of power politics and exalted visions, but remarkably often, at least into the present century, someone present has imported a mystical theme, in the form of a seductive prophecy, and that is about to expire. I... Read more
You know you are reading a good book when you wish you had read it already. I wish that I had read Priests of History: Stewarding the Past in an Ahistoric Age a year ago. Last fall, while co-teaching an interdisciplinary course at Baylor, I confess that I struggled to articulate why exactly my students should care about history beyond its provision of context for interpreting ideas. Guiding students through our readings from Plato, Nietzsche, McIntyre, and Haidt, I knew... Read more
Reflections on C. W. Goodyear’s President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier (Simon and Schuster, 2023) Of all the presidents, James A. Garfield probably held the greatest religious interest for people in my own church circle when I was growing up. To anyone outside of the Stone-Campbell Restorationist movement, that may seem a surprising statement. Garfield’s presidency lasted only six months, since he was assassinated shortly after taking office. During that time, he accomplished almost nothing other than appointing people to his... Read more
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