That Was The Week That Was
Greetings from Birmingham, Alabama, where we’re about to start the last day of the 2024 meeting of the Conference on Faith and History!
I’ll write up some reflections from CFH 2024 when I get back to my regular (sabbatical) schedule next week. In the meantime, all I had time to share this week was the text of my recent address on “Christ the Servant-centered higher education.” But elsewhere:
• I don’t think having homes full of books will actually save civilization, but I wish more people would take advantage of a benefit that’s open to many more people than in previous ages.
• I love that sports historian Paul Putz used the occasion of his first book being published as a chance to tell readers about the “many people [who] have invested in me and shaped who I am.”
(Paul also had an interesting interview with Kelsey Dallas about what it means that “faith pervades the everyday experience of sports” nowadays.)
• What can contemporary Christians learn from the Barmen Declaration, the Nazi-era statement principally written by Karl Barth?
• While religion remains an important subject for students of American politics, this year’s two leading presidential candidates have both been rather quiet about their own faith.
• The Assemblies of God, Southern Baptist Convention, United Methodist Church, and Presbyterian Church USA may not have much in common, but majorities from all four denominations voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
• There are so many bipartisan reasons to dislike and distrust the Republican candidate for president (most recently his dangerous lies about the federal response to Hurricane Helene) that I sometimes forget one of them: he has absolutely cashed in on the religious fervor of his followers.
• Saving this article for when I teach an adult Sunday School class next month (of all months!) on “The Politics of Evangelicalism” — which is no monolith.
• As she enters retirement, Shirley Hoogstra looked back at ten years of leading the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities.
• Finally, it’s not every week that my university announces a $20 million gift, and I’m glad this one funds a health sciences college (since I specifically mentioned health care in arguing that the “Christ the servant-centered college” should prepare graduates to meet the needs of their neighbors).