The Thin Blue Line and Death in America

Last updated on: November 25, 2014 at 4:18 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Too many African-American young people are arrested in the United States. Too many African-American young people are harassed by police in the United States. Too many African-American young people are shot by police in the United States. That is the context, though not an excuse, for the rioting that is shaking the United States of America. Much of a community no longer accepts the “facts” that the establishment, including the African-American establishment, gives them. Who can judge them? Some saints... Read more

Moderation and Meekness: Just What We Need

Last updated on: November 13, 2014 at 10:46 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Christians need leaders who are moderate and meek. Saying that sounds like advocacy for impotence, but Moses, the meekest man who ever lived, was no wimp. Moderation is a virtue and it ought to go without saying that it is good to be good. Extremism in defense of liberty is tyranny with good rhetoric, moderation in pursuit of virtue prevents becoming so straight you lean a bit. A moderate man or woman knows what to do, how much to do... Read more

Beware Becoming the Music Man: Reflections on a Weekend Reading Ion

Last updated on: January 10, 2015 at 12:23 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

We don’t have to be told that there is trouble in the United States: we have to educate our young adults. We know there is trouble, terrible, terrible trouble. But there is also good in the decay: You cannot sell HBU students, but you can educate them. You cannot con them for long, but you can love them. Don’t give up on “the young people.” In fact, people my age should stop thinking we know the “young people” when all... Read more

The Best Of Times

Last updated on: October 28, 2014 at 3:16 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Nobody needs me to list reasons for worry. I am worried about the state of the Union, the direction of the global economy, and the rise of Christian persecution. All true, all requiring prayer, and none of it going away. And yet Jesus is Lord. Think of it: history is moving in His direction, not the direction of vice. Once the cool kids of Russia all wanted the Soviet experiment, now the Soviet Union is gone. Fascists were cool once,... Read more

Three Simple Truths about Education

Last updated on: October 22, 2014 at 11:12 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

This week will mark the 31st year of teaching and here are three simple truths: 1. trust the dialectic. I am asking a new question for Homer this year: “Why must Thersites be beaten?” I must trust the question and the students and see what happens. This years opening question is starts with a small man, but it will lead, I trust, to the text. It also can easily be applied to the life of students and to my own... Read more

Petty Tyrants in a Tyrannical Age: Annise Parker

Last updated on: January 10, 2015 at 12:23 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Annise Parker is not the biggest problem my Church faces. So help us God, what a better world it would be if this were true. We support a bishop in Syria who finds himself surrounded by ISIS, at the mercy of the kind favors of Putin, and fired at with American supplied weaponry. Twenty-two million of us died in the last century, were denied university education, and lived as second class citizens for the crime of being faithful. Redshirt thugs... Read more

Gratitude: An Intellectual History (A Live Reading Part IV)

Last updated on: October 13, 2014 at 5:53 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Gratitude: An Intellectual History is a book on an important topic that pays a careful reading. The impatient, or reviewers with deadlines, can read an Introduction that deftly summarizes Western civilizations’ views on gratitude in very few pages. The gourmet can sup deeply into chapter one and chapter two, well-researched enough to withstand the palate and spicy enough to stay fascinating. As with all “live readings” this takes place in real time. I blog as I read. The posts are not edited at all or only... Read more

Gratitude: An Intellectual History (A Live Reading Part III)

Last updated on: October 6, 2014 at 2:57 pm By John Mark N. Reynolds

Gratitude: An Intellectual History is an intellectual feast that gives you choices: you can consume the content in several different ways. The impatient, or reviewers with deadlines, can read an Introduction that deftly summarizes Western civilizations’ views on gratitude in very few pages. The gourmet can sup deeply into chapters well-researched enough to withstand the palate and spicy enough to stay fascinating. This is a live reading. You get my opinions as I have them while reading sections of the text. The blog... Read more

Gratitude: An Intellectual History (A Live Reading Part II)

Last updated on: September 18, 2014 at 1:22 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

Gratitude: An Intellectual History is a very good book (thus far) written by an interesting intellectual. Good books are rare, interesting intellectuals not so common, and good books by interesting intellectuals are like a clean comedienne who is funny: scarce and worth celebrating. So I celebrate this book and the author Peter Leithart by doing a live reading of his book. In a “live read,” I blog as I read (usually a few pages at a time). As a result, I... Read more

Gratitude: An Intellectual History (A Live Reading Part I)

Last updated on: September 13, 2014 at 11:33 am By John Mark N. Reynolds

When the publisher sent me Gratitude: An Intellectual History, I felt sure this would be a book worth reading. First, the topic is needed if my own life and the lives of my students are any indication. Grateful? Not so much. Second, the author writes like an angel and thinks from different angles than the normal Christian intellectual. The test of my feeling of anticipation is to blog the book as I read it for all the world to see. My... Read more