That Was The Week That Was
January 5-11, 2025
This week I considered the evolving faith of a New York Times columnist, explained why Christian students should consider public universities, and proposed the Magi as model for Christian scholarship. At my Women of Bethel blog, I reported on a 1994 investigation into women’s experiences at our seminary.
Elsewhere:
• As we near the 500th anniversary of the birth of Anabaptism, one contemporary Anabaptist found her “spiritual ancestry not through theological treatises but in what we can discern from legal briefs, trial documents, and final statements before execution.”
(I can’t say that I’ll celebrate that occasion by spending over a hundred bucks on the Anabaptist Community Bible, but you should read Mennonite historian John Roth explain how that rather impressive project took shape.)
• Next to rise of the Nones, the biggest story in American religion right now may be the rise of the Non(denominational)s.
• In the wake of the shooting of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, an interfaith group of shareholders is trying to get the company to review its denials of coverage.
• There’s a lot that could be said about January 6th this year, but at the end of the day, the Rolling Stone headline is right: Donald Trump “got away with it.”
• One of these days, I’m going to write a post thinking through the relationship between the rise of Donald Trump and the career of French far right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died this week at age 96.
• Le Pen was succeeded by his daughter Marine, who’s been less enthusiastic than you might expect about Trump’s return to power.
• Should this country’s leading society of historians be issuing a resolution condemning Israeli “scholasticide”?
• One leading opponent of that initiative in the American Historical Association is its executive director, Jim Grossman, who’s retiring after fifteen years in leadership.
• Thanks to our January term, I’m already a week into class. But some of you professors out there still have a chance to get a new semester off to a good start.
• Perhaps our department was ahead of the ball in dedicating its capstone course to applied humanities…
• Finally, the adventure of Sherlock Holmes and international copyright law is better than you might think.