No Longer Normal
Book Review: Believe Me by John Fea
As someone who grew up steeped in the conservative political world of the Evangelical Christian movement in the US, I was continually stunned by the ability (and willingness) of Evangelicals to continue to make excuses for the seemingly un-Christian behavior, attitudes, and rhetoric of Donald Trump. In his book, Believe Me, John Fea (my colleague at […]
Inspired: A Review of Rachel Held Evans’ New Book
I’ve had the chance to read an advanced copy of Rachel Held Evans’ new book Inspired: Slaying giants, walking on water, and loving the Bible again. Here are my thoughts/review of the book. (Page numbers may change before final release and are therefore not referenced in this review.) What Evans has done here is, in my view, […]
De-centering Whiteness
Another post today based on an older blog post from Drew Hart. As I’ve said before, Drew’s voice has been formative for me in processing issues of race. As a fellow MennoNerd, I’ve valued his ability to aid me in connecting issues of race with the Jesus centered faith at the heart of our shared […]
Having to Prioritize: Activism or Education?
On the heels of yesterday’s post about the culture-clash struggle of the poor at our institutions of higher education, I thought I’d point out another instance of this type of struggle. My friend and fellow MennoNerd Drew Hart posted about the internal struggle for those pursuing higher degrees while feeling the pull to be more […]
The Struggle of the Poor College Student
This is the first in a series of posts hoping to clear out a bunch of interesting articles that I’ve read lately but haven’t had time to blog about here. Today’s post is based on a September article by Vicki Madden in the NY Times about poor students. For me, it came at a good […]
Are You Fully Pro-Life?
Many anti-abortion Christians call themselves “Pro-Life”. I myself have used that moniker. I now see the short-coming in this view. A couple of weeks ago a friend and fellow MennoNerd named Benjamin Corey posted over at Formerly Fundie a piece entitled What “I Value The Sanctity of All Human Life” Usually Doesn’t Mean (but should). This […]
Austin Channing Brown on Reconciliation and Justice
It is the Jewish New Year, and I’m going to use this as a good reason to restart my blog. Yes, it has been a while. Life has gotten busy, of course, and a move closer to Messiah College’s campus, where I teach statistics, didn’t help. Still, it is time to begin to use this […]
Living Liberation through Family: Orphan Care
If you’ve been tracking with my blog for long, you know that orphan care through foster care and adoption are near and dear to my heart. My family includes two adopted kids. We have felt from very early in our marriage that we were being prepared to adopt, and specifically to adopt across racial boundaries. […]
The Beauty that Palin Misses
In the last few days I’ve seen multiple reactions to the recent comments by Sarah Palin in which she stated: “Well, if I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptize terrorists.” I won’t link to the whole 12 minute diatribe, because I think it is likely a waste of time to […]
Nothing New Under the Sun: Racism in America (Again)
My friend, and fellow MennoNerd, Drew Hart shared a link on Twitter this morning to a piece he wrote in August 2013. The piece speaks to the relationship of 400 years of discrimination from the origins of black slavery through the modern day. While the most recent incident mentioned in the piece is the Trayvon Martin […]
No Longer Normal 