Ecumenicity and History
Last time I threw an elbow to my right regarding the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, so this week I’ll exercise a bit of fair and balanced and tweak the progressive side—at least...
View ArticleHistory Quiz
Ok, it's the first weekend in August and with it comes a slight tremor of forewarning that summer's going to end. The mind panics a bit, goes distracted and diffuse. So here, gentle reader, from the...
View ArticleAn American Joseph/ine
The sounds of fatigue and sorrow have been pretty constant on this blog of late, and for good reason. So here’s a curveball. No one’s ever mistaken me for an optimist (hoots of derision from family and...
View ArticleThe End of Summer
My grandpa would always read Psalm 90 for family devotions on New Year’s Eve. I witnessed this once, and my mom said it was that way all the time. Good Christian Reformed elder, he left ritual—“mere...
View ArticleThe Half Has Never Been Told
From time to time I like to use this blog to air out some conversation, or combat, going on inside the guild of American historians. The arguments never stop, with the happy consequence that we members...
View ArticleAnother Take on Spiritual But not Religious
Jim Bratt is away today. We thank Paul Janssen for being our guest blogger. The church is hardly crying out for another take on "spiritual but not religious." Googling the phrase yields a fairly...
View ArticleAlways Remember!
My mother died the night before last. It was the end of six months or so of steady decline from an already diminished state of mind and body. Mom suffered a stroke almost nine years ago that left her...
View ArticleLet Us Grieve
With my mother’s memorial service just one week past, I hope you’ll accept one more post about encountering the end of life. Next time a different topic, I promise. My biggest surprise in this whole...
View ArticleMarilynne Robinson on Jonathan Edwards
Lots of people are eagerly awaiting their copy of Marilynne Robinson’s new novel Lila. Me too, though realistically my schedule probably won’t let me get to it till Christmas. Meanwhile, I was...
View ArticleAnniversaries
I wanted to devote this post to some reflections on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 51 years ago today, and figured that a good way to do so would be by recourse to a poem written about the...
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