As some of you may have heard, earlier this fall, the Rev. Charles Melvin Sherrod, a minister, civil rights leader, and life-long community organizer, died in Albany, Georgia at the age of 85. I wrote briefly about Sherrod and his impact on the freedom struggle for the Washington Post, but wanted to also take a moment here to expound, very informally and personally, on some themes from his remarkable life. Over the past several years, in working on a biography... Read more
This past Monday John Fea’s (21K f.; Messiah University Professor; author of Believe Me; past CFH President) Current, a digital journal, published an essay entitled “Forum: The New Shape of Christian Public Discourse” from historian, Jay Green, past CFH President, who currently teaches at Covenant College. Green’s essay proposes a grid for analyzing the landscape of Christian public discourse by plotting the goals of discourse on an x-axis and the means of discourse along a y-axis. Green plots the goal... Read more
Pope Francis has recently issued statements about the Ukraine war that are so mind-bogglingly at variance with reality as to raise alarming questions about him, and by extension, about anything in his record in that office. Why, in short, is he repeatedly recycling Kremlin talking points? I do have a couple of theories to explain his behavior, but none is too complimentary. Francis has in the past said some extremely silly things about the war currently raging in Ukraine. Last... Read more
Last month I asked whether pluralism can work in American higher education. What are the possibilities? What are the potential pitfalls? Today I want to ask what might be an even more intriguing question: Can pluralism work in Christian higher education? What would that even mean? To explore these questions, I’m thinking in conversation with George Marsden’s excellent Soul of the American University Revisited: From Protestant to Postsecular. As I explored last time, in his updated 2021 edition of his... Read more
I have becoming increasingly convinced that the preservation of a functioning democracy in which human rights are respected and civil discourse across the political spectrum is encouraged should be one of the most important priorities for American evangelical Christians. Yet too often, evangelical Christians are divided themselves about the value of civil discourse and democratic norms, with some openly rejecting these virtues. I’ve written elsewhere about why American evangelicals should care about the health of our democracy, but I was... Read more
Now that Thanksgiving is past and the holiday season has officially begun, I’m ready for my favorite Christmas tradition: watching holiday movies. I admit that I have something of a small addiction. I love the classics, of course—It’s a Wonderful Life, Love Actually, Die Hard. I enjoy the new shows, too, especially if they have diverse characters (Dash and Lily, Happiest Season) or involve royalty falling in love in generic European countries with lots of snow (the Christmas Prince... Read more
The season of Advent begins this year next Sunday, November 27. This is one of my favorite times in the church year, and for many reasons, I relish the “O Antiphons,” which belong precisely to this season. They are so rich in the lessons they teach, with implications for Christmas, of course, but also for the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, and (surprisingly perhaps) for the apocalypse and the Last Judgment. You could actually present a fairly complete... Read more
My third--and final--post on the legacy of Ron Sider Read more
My past caught up with me last week. I stood on the West Campus of Duke University for the first time in more than nineteen years. A school group was visiting, their tour buses parked in the road circling past the gothic tower of the university chapel. I didn’t want to become part of the background for dozens of selfie pictures, so rather than join the crowd on the lawn, I sat on a bench–eating my breakfast bagel from the... Read more
“Don’t believe those indios, Vero,” the Mexican scholar told me in Spanish as we walked away from the Franciscan friary. “They don’t know their history; they’re inventing rituals. Talk to the scholars here instead.” I didn’t know how to respond and nearly tripped over the colonial cobblestones in surprise. I knew that prejudice against native people persisted in modern Mexico, but didn’t expect to hear a renowned Mexican historian who specializes in native peoples express the same sentiment. Perhaps I... Read more
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