Patrick Deneen is one of the most thoughtful conservatives writing today. Over at Front Porch Republic he asks: "Is There a Conservative Tradition in America?" Once again, Deneen is on the mark. He writes:
Yet, by another measure the answer is anything but obvious. Americans have largely come to accept a certain definition of conservatism that largely goes without examination in the media and everyday discussion. While difficult to define, contemporary American conservatism seems to be shaped by a certain set of core commitments. While not exhaustive, among those characteristics one could confidently list: 1. Commitment to limited government as laid out by the Founders in the Constitution; 2. Support for Free Markets; 3. Strong National defense; 4. Individual responsibility and a suspicion toward collectivism; and 5. Defense of traditional values, particularly support for family. I’m sure there are many other characteristics we could agree upon, but these are several that seem to be core devotions of modern conservatism, and nearly anyone with passing knowledge of American politics could look at this list and agree that this would seem to reflect Conservative values.
Herein lies the problem and the question: with the likely exception of #5 on my list – “defense of traditional values, particularly support of the family” – every characteristic that I’ve listed is actually a species of liberalism. I don’t mean that they are liberal in the way that we typically use the word to describe people like Nancy Pelosi or Michael Dukakis; rather, I mean liberal in its classical conception, that political philosophy that arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with its deepest origins in the Social Contract theory of Thomas Hobbes, further refined by John Locke, amended by Adam Smith and Montesquieu, and put into effect by our Founders, especially in those two founding documents The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. To be clear – there is a species of conservatism within this tradition, to be sure – about which I’ll say more – but at the outset it needs to be acknowledged that we are speaking here of the difference between conservative liberals and progressive liberals, and not typically non- or anti-liberal conservatives and liberals per se.
Deneen shows how most of the so-called "founding principles of America, particularly those embodied in our basic documents" such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, are liberal. He continues:
The Declaration is our nation's work of high philosophy, a distillation of Lockean principles deriving from his Second Treatises on Government. Yet, thinkers from Edmund Burke to Russell Kirk has shown the deeply anti-conservative bases of the social contract theory of Lockean (and Hobbesian) origin one that is premised upon a conception of human beings as naturally “free and independent,” as autonomous individuals who are thought to exist by nature detached from a web of relationships that include family, community, Church, region, and so on. The Lockean logic subjects all human relationships to radical scrutiny, valorizing choice and voluntarism as the sole basis of legitimacy in any human bond. This logic radically destabilizes all existing ties, making individual calculation the primary basis on which to assess the legitimacy and claims of any association. This logic not only places the polity under its legitimizing logic, but all traditional relations, even finally the family itself. The logic used to justify America’s break with England worked like a steady solvent throughout its history, first detaching people’s allegiances from communities, from Churches, then from the individual States, and finally today – among the vanguard, the enlightened elite – from the nation and from the family alike. Today’s conservatives in most cases see this as a step too far, yet they have generally signed on in support of the philosophy that led to this culmination of the Lockean project.
And on the Constitution:
Conservatives today see the Constitution as the more conservative, even stabilizing document, giving form and shape to a limited government of enumerated powers, divided powers and the federated sharing of powers. Today conservatives assign blame to the intervention of 19th-century Progressives – thinkers like John Dewey and Herbert Croly – for the evisceration of the Founder’s 18th-century sober wisdom. They see particularly the influx of foreign contaminants – in the form of progressive German philosophy inspired by the likes of Kant and Hegel – as the source of the corruption of the Constitution. They seek its restoration to its original form, the original understanding of the Framers.
This explanation overlooks a substantial body of writing that argued that the Constitution was a document that sought a centralizing “consolidation” from the very outset. I speak of the extensive writings of the varied authors called “Anti-federalists,” – that group of men who Herbert Storing categorized as the “conservatives” in the ratification debate. It was for varied reasons that the Anti-federalists opposed ratification of the Constitution, but in many cases saw and predicted tendencies in the document that have reached full flourishing in our own day. Their witness renders problematic the view that the Constitution has been substantially misinterpreted by today’s liberals, and rather suggests that the Constitution, too, had a logic like the Declaration that has taken time to work out, but which in the end has come to realize exactly those fears expressed by the Anti-federalists in the 1780s.
Deneen concludes: "A true conservatism has few friends in today’s America."
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Another Take on the Pew Religion Survey
Over at Huffpost Religion, Bruce Feiler makes some useful observations about the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey.
He writes:
The headlines this week were bold: "Americans Don't Know Much About Religion"; "Atheists Know More About Religion Than Believers"; "Basic Religious Test Stumps Most Americans."
Eh? Did these writers read the survey these articles were based on? The Pew Forum survey on religious knowledge in America contained a number of revelations and surprises, but few were covered in the initial articles. After reading the actual results, here are four important truths about Americans and God.
Those truths are:
1. Americans know more about religion than almost any other topic.
2. The most popular religious figure in America is Moses
3. Believers still dominate in America; atheists are not gaining ground.
4. Americans know as much about other religions as they know about their own.
He writes:
The headlines this week were bold: "Americans Don't Know Much About Religion"; "Atheists Know More About Religion Than Believers"; "Basic Religious Test Stumps Most Americans."
Eh? Did these writers read the survey these articles were based on? The Pew Forum survey on religious knowledge in America contained a number of revelations and surprises, but few were covered in the initial articles. After reading the actual results, here are four important truths about Americans and God.
Those truths are:
1. Americans know more about religion than almost any other topic.
2. The most popular religious figure in America is Moses
3. Believers still dominate in America; atheists are not gaining ground.
4. Americans know as much about other religions as they know about their own.
Living in a Church
Springsteen on The Promise
In November Bruce Springsteen will release "The Promise," a box set that includes the songs that did not make it onto his classic album, "Darkness on the Edge of Town." (1978). The package will also include a documentary on the making of the album with plenty of old footage from sessions with the E-Street Band. The documentary will debut on HBO in October.In anticipation of the release of "The Promise," The Irish Times is running a nice feature on Springsteen. Shane Hegarty's entire article is a must read for Springsteen fans, but here is a small taste:
The audience intensity is, though, a response to his own commitment on stage. He has toured relentlessly in recent years – 11 shows in Ireland alone since 2005 – and last time around he was playing almost three hours of bone-shaking brilliance without even the pretence of walking off for an encore. “You have to want to do it,” he says. “Also, you have to show, not tell. That’s why they call it show business. It’s not the ‘tell business’, it’s ‘show’ business’ ”
He talks about Sting once telling him, “You work too hard”, then later adding: “Oh, I get it, this is the only way you know how to do it.”
Springsteen’s drive has to be matched by the band’s, and he will not allow it to flag. “I would put any of our shows now alongside anything we did 30 years ago,” he says. “I want it to be that if your brother comes to see this, he won’t have seen us play better. If your father comes, he won’t have seen us play better. If you’re grandfather comes, he won’t have seen us play better.”
Affirmative Action for the Rich
Today's New York Times has an interesting op-ed by Richard Kahlenberg on legacy preferences at elite colleges and universities. Here is a taste:
At our top universities, so-called legacy preferences affect larger numbers of students than traditional affirmative action programs for minority students, yet they have received a small fraction of the attention. Unlike the issue of racial preferences, advantages for alumni children — who are overwhelmingly white and wealthy — have been the subject of little scholarship, no state voter initiatives and no Supreme Court decisions.
Among selective research universities, public and private, almost three-quarters employ legacy preferences, as do the vast majority of selective liberal arts colleges. Some admissions departments insist they are used only as tie-breakers among deserving applicants. But studies have shown that being the child of an alumnus adds the equivalent of 160 SAT points to one’s application (using the traditional 400-to-1600-point scale, and not factoring in the new writing section of the test) and increases one’s chances of admission by almost 20 percentage points.
At many selective schools, legacies make up 10 percent to 25 percent of the student population. By contrast, at the California Institute of Technology, which has no legacy preferences, only 1.5 percent of students are the children of alumni.
As Kahlenberg notes, this is the kind of "elitism" that the founders did not endorse. Case in point--Thomas Jefferson believed that the nation should be run by a "natural aristocracy" based on "virtue and talent."
Kahlenberg also suggests that legacy preferences may also violate the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of "ancestry."
At our top universities, so-called legacy preferences affect larger numbers of students than traditional affirmative action programs for minority students, yet they have received a small fraction of the attention. Unlike the issue of racial preferences, advantages for alumni children — who are overwhelmingly white and wealthy — have been the subject of little scholarship, no state voter initiatives and no Supreme Court decisions.
Among selective research universities, public and private, almost three-quarters employ legacy preferences, as do the vast majority of selective liberal arts colleges. Some admissions departments insist they are used only as tie-breakers among deserving applicants. But studies have shown that being the child of an alumnus adds the equivalent of 160 SAT points to one’s application (using the traditional 400-to-1600-point scale, and not factoring in the new writing section of the test) and increases one’s chances of admission by almost 20 percentage points.
At many selective schools, legacies make up 10 percent to 25 percent of the student population. By contrast, at the California Institute of Technology, which has no legacy preferences, only 1.5 percent of students are the children of alumni.
As Kahlenberg notes, this is the kind of "elitism" that the founders did not endorse. Case in point--Thomas Jefferson believed that the nation should be run by a "natural aristocracy" based on "virtue and talent."
Kahlenberg also suggests that legacy preferences may also violate the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of "ancestry."
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Careers in History Symposium
I would love to bring my students to this event on November 12 at IUPUI. If there are any wealthy readers of this blog who might be willing to fund us for gas and mileage from Grantham, PA to Indianapolis and perhaps a few hotel rooms we just might be able to pull it off! (I am only half-kidding about this-- if you are interested in helping us out drop me a note at jfea(at)messiah.edu).
The Careers in History Symposium takes aim at the question, “What careers are open to me if I want to be an historian?” An exciting array of more than a dozen panelists representing local, state, and federal jobs, from the public to the private sphere, and from Indiana, New York, Ohio, Georgia, and California, will also provide answers to the question, “What do I need to know now about working with the past?”
The National Council on Public History, the IUPUI History Graduate Student Association, and the IUPUI History Department invite faculty and undergraduate and graduate students to attend.
Keynote speaker Dr. Jamil Zainaldin is an historian who heads the Georgia Humanities Council and was the former director of the Federation of State Humanities Councils. He was recently profiled in the National Endowment for the Arts magazine, HUMANITIES.
The afternoon plenary will be a video-link panel with Cynthia Koch, the director of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum at Hyde Park, NY, and Marianne Babal, corporate historian and assistant vice president with Wells Fargo and Company, San Francisco. Other panels will cover state and federal jobs, nonprofits such as museums and historical societies, and a special emphasis on private sector entrepreneurialism in Indiana.
Besides specific history/public history career information, we will offer fresh perspectives on the many ways in which professional historians, archaeologists, geographers, curators, preservationists, cultural resource managers, and small businesses work together. Students will gain an understanding of the many ways in which history and the humanities are put to work in the world.
Registration opens October 4. The registration fee is $10.
Join us on November 12!
Click here for a PDF of the program.
The Careers in History Symposium takes aim at the question, “What careers are open to me if I want to be an historian?” An exciting array of more than a dozen panelists representing local, state, and federal jobs, from the public to the private sphere, and from Indiana, New York, Ohio, Georgia, and California, will also provide answers to the question, “What do I need to know now about working with the past?”
The National Council on Public History, the IUPUI History Graduate Student Association, and the IUPUI History Department invite faculty and undergraduate and graduate students to attend.
Keynote speaker Dr. Jamil Zainaldin is an historian who heads the Georgia Humanities Council and was the former director of the Federation of State Humanities Councils. He was recently profiled in the National Endowment for the Arts magazine, HUMANITIES.
The afternoon plenary will be a video-link panel with Cynthia Koch, the director of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum at Hyde Park, NY, and Marianne Babal, corporate historian and assistant vice president with Wells Fargo and Company, San Francisco. Other panels will cover state and federal jobs, nonprofits such as museums and historical societies, and a special emphasis on private sector entrepreneurialism in Indiana.
Besides specific history/public history career information, we will offer fresh perspectives on the many ways in which professional historians, archaeologists, geographers, curators, preservationists, cultural resource managers, and small businesses work together. Students will gain an understanding of the many ways in which history and the humanities are put to work in the world.
Registration opens October 4. The registration fee is $10.
Join us on November 12!
Click here for a PDF of the program.
Chronicling America
I am always amazed to learn how much primary source material is available on the web. Thanks to New York History, I learned today that Chronicling America, the newspaper archive of the Library of Congress, has just added more than 380,000 new historic newspaper pages to its site.
Teachers of undergraduates really have no excuse for not assigning projects that require students to do historical research. This, of course, is an incredible boon to scholars as well.
Teachers of undergraduates really have no excuse for not assigning projects that require students to do historical research. This, of course, is an incredible boon to scholars as well.
What Would MLK Drive?
Perhaps a $175,000 Mercedes SLS AMG coupe.
Mercedes is using the image of Martin Luther King Jr., among others, to advertise their most expensive new model.
Here is a snippet from the Washington Post:
While the ad doesn't mention it, the SLS AMG retails for $175,000 -- which probably wasn't what King had in mind when he was advocating economic justice for America's poor in the 1960s.
Mercedes is using the image of Martin Luther King Jr., among others, to advertise their most expensive new model.
Here is a snippet from the Washington Post:
While the ad doesn't mention it, the SLS AMG retails for $175,000 -- which probably wasn't what King had in mind when he was advocating economic justice for America's poor in the 1960s.
How to Name an Evangelical Church
Your next order of business — even before you secure adult-sized folding chairs and an electronic drum machine — is to decide up on a church name.
So begins Jared Bridges's hilarious post on the way evangelical churches get named. To summarize:
Step One: Start with a list of words that includes (see the entire post for the full list): Grace, Life, Community, Covenant, Fellowship, Creek, Calvary, Chapel, Bible, First, Cross, or Redeemer.
Step Two: "Take any combination of the words listed above, in any order, add to them your denominational (or lack thereof) appellation, and tack the word 'Church' at the end."
And presto--you have a new name for your evangelical church.
Read the entire post here.
Humility and the Economy
We are interested in virtues here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. Humility is one of them. Samuel Gregg has a nice piece on humility and marketplace at the blog of the Action Institute.
Gregg writes:
In the case of consumers, a good dose of humility might well encourage some acceptance that the meaning of life is not simple and is certainly not to be found in how many material things we possess, as important as wealth can be in helping us to live dignified lives. To this extent, greater humility might temper the “I-want-it-all-right-now” mentality that helped generate such high household-debt levels in America and Europe.
Likewise, businesses could benefit from a renewed appreciation of humility. The financial wizard the late Sir John Templeton once wrote that humility was crucial if business was to maintain the open-mindedness that is essential to successful entrepreneurship rather than rest upon their past glories. To this we might add the insight of another prominent entrepreneur, François Michelin, that humility helps business leaders in a market economy remember that the customers are the real masters. More humble business-leaders would also be less-inclined to succumb to the “Masters-of-the-Universe” hubris that helped destroy any number of banks in 2008.
Speaking of hubris, humility also has a role to play in encouraging mainstream economists to accept economics’ limits as a science and acknowledge that not everything about markets can be explained by mathematical models that were supposed to fail only once in a million years. As George Mason University professor of economics Russ Roberts has wisely observed, while “facts and evidence still matter”, economists “should face the evidence that we are no better today at predicting tomorrow than we were yesterday.”
Gregg writes:
In the case of consumers, a good dose of humility might well encourage some acceptance that the meaning of life is not simple and is certainly not to be found in how many material things we possess, as important as wealth can be in helping us to live dignified lives. To this extent, greater humility might temper the “I-want-it-all-right-now” mentality that helped generate such high household-debt levels in America and Europe.
Likewise, businesses could benefit from a renewed appreciation of humility. The financial wizard the late Sir John Templeton once wrote that humility was crucial if business was to maintain the open-mindedness that is essential to successful entrepreneurship rather than rest upon their past glories. To this we might add the insight of another prominent entrepreneur, François Michelin, that humility helps business leaders in a market economy remember that the customers are the real masters. More humble business-leaders would also be less-inclined to succumb to the “Masters-of-the-Universe” hubris that helped destroy any number of banks in 2008.
Speaking of hubris, humility also has a role to play in encouraging mainstream economists to accept economics’ limits as a science and acknowledge that not everything about markets can be explained by mathematical models that were supposed to fail only once in a million years. As George Mason University professor of economics Russ Roberts has wisely observed, while “facts and evidence still matter”, economists “should face the evidence that we are no better today at predicting tomorrow than we were yesterday.”
What Do You Do With Dust Jackets?
Over at Jesus Creed, Scot McKnight asks his readers to tell him what they do with the dust jackets on books. McKnight removes them and throws them in the trash. He says the jackets give him paper cuts.
All of my hardback books still have their covers. I can't bring myself to throw away the covers despite the fact that they can be annoying at times. I always think about all the hard work that went into designing them.
How about you?
All of my hardback books still have their covers. I can't bring myself to throw away the covers despite the fact that they can be annoying at times. I always think about all the hard work that went into designing them.
How about you?
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Are Americans Ignorant?
John Kerry is getting hammered by his political opponents for making the following statement during a tour of Boston Medical Center: "we have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on... people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than by the facts or the truth."
First off, I have yet to see a transcript of Kerry's entire statement. What was the question to which he was responding? When he said that Americans were influenced by a "simple slogan" was he talking about something generic or specific?
But what led me to Kerry's remarks was Rick Shenkman's piece in today's Salon. Shenkman is the founder of the History News Network, a website that brings historical perspective to current events. His recent book is Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter.
Here is the Publishers Weekly review of Shenkman's book:
Shenkman...makes the provocative argument that as American voters have gained political power in the last 50 years, they have become increasingly ignorant of politics and world affairs—and dangerously susceptible to manipulation. The book provides a litany of depressing statistics—most Americans cannot name their representatives in Congress, only 20% hold a passport, 30% cannot identify the Holocaust—as Shenkman inquires whether Americans are capable of voting in the nation's or even their own best interests. Although Shenkman clearly derives some pleasure in pointing out the stupidity and irrationality of the American public, his concern is genuine and heartfelt. In lucid, playful prose, he illustrates how politicians have repeatedly misled voters and analyzes the dumbing down of American politics via marketing, spin machines and misinformation. Shenkman initiates an important conversation in this book and makes welcome suggestions to reinvigorate civic responsibility and provide people with the knowledge and tools necessary to efficaciously participate in the political process.
Populists and their so-called "elitist" enemies need to read Shenkman's Salon article about Kerry. He writes:
In Kerry's defense it should be noted that nothing he said was actually the least bit controversial -- if one takes into account the facts, something admittedly that is not terribly popular in American politics. Studies since the 1940s have consistently shown that Americans by and large don't pay much attention to politics, and when they do it is apt to be because somebody has nicely captured their feelings about the times in a reductionist bumper sticker slogan.
Just how ignorant are Americans? Three facts. Only one out of two know the Constitution was drafted in Philadelphia. Only one in five know there are a hundred U.S. senators. Only two in five can name the three branches of government. Please note that in each case the part of the electorate that has been found to be knowledgeable about our history and our government is in the minority.
Poor John Kerry. He has the facts on his side and thinks that matters. Does the man not understand how politics is played these days? How it has been played for going on 40 years, ever since George Wallace denounced pointy-headed intellectuals and Richard Nixon discovered the virtues of the Silent Majority?
Does he not remember being demonized as an effete, wine-swilling, French-speaking, surfer boy-man who hunts in clean clothes and resides in a mansion?
I have some news for Mr. Kerry. Nothing's changed since 2004. We are the same country we were then, Barack Obama's election notwithstanding. Even Obama had to sing about hope and change and Yes, we can as if those were more than empty slogans. (His biographer tells us Obama was embarrassed by the latter slogan. Good for him.)
If the senator wants to join the nascent movement to restore civics to the school curricula -- a movement I heartily embrace -- by all means let him do so by giving a serious address on the subject from the floor of the Senate and then rallying his fellow solons to provide the necessary funding. But he should not be tossing off bons mots in passing about ignorant voters. That plays right into the hands of the Republicans, who are all too ready to rally voters by appealing to faux cultural populist motifs...
As for Republicans. Please! Just because you can play the populist card to great effect doesn't mean you should. Let me pretend to be Jon Stewart for a moment. Aside. Camera two ... Can't we agree that it's cheeky to claim to be on the side of the little guy while favoring tax breaks for the wealthy, as you guys keep doing? Isn't that a bit rich? You can't play the race card anymore because racism is now politically incorrect, but it's OK to play the populist card? Shouldn't that be politically incorrect, too?
Back to camera one. Folks of both left and right: We can do better, can't we? Don't we have to? If only we put as much effort into arming voters with the facts as we do manipulating them, might we not have smarter politics? Don't smarter voters equal smarter politics? Hey, it's just a thought. But don't we want to live in a country with smart voters?
Kerry is right about the ignorance of the American electorate. Shenkman's research proves this. The founding fathers--those so-called demigods that we all appeal to for the answers to all our problems--would not be happy about this ignorance. They all believed that an informed and educated citizenry was essential to the success of the American republic. To put it differently, they were the first "elitists."
By calling for an educated citizenry Kerry finds himself a victim of the populist democratic culture of America. American's don't like elitists, especially now. Actually, Kerry sounds a lot like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in the early decades of the 19th century. These two founders wrote letters to each other lamenting the emergence of this populist democratic culture.
Shenkman is right to suggest that Kerry made a poor political move here. But Kerry's remarks were bad only if we define what is good and bad based upon the ethical system (if we can call it that) of American politics. And if this is the case, as I am afraid it now is, God help us.
Help! I think I am becoming an elitist!!
First off, I have yet to see a transcript of Kerry's entire statement. What was the question to which he was responding? When he said that Americans were influenced by a "simple slogan" was he talking about something generic or specific?
But what led me to Kerry's remarks was Rick Shenkman's piece in today's Salon. Shenkman is the founder of the History News Network, a website that brings historical perspective to current events. His recent book is Just How Stupid Are We? Facing the Truth About the American Voter.
Here is the Publishers Weekly review of Shenkman's book:
Shenkman...makes the provocative argument that as American voters have gained political power in the last 50 years, they have become increasingly ignorant of politics and world affairs—and dangerously susceptible to manipulation. The book provides a litany of depressing statistics—most Americans cannot name their representatives in Congress, only 20% hold a passport, 30% cannot identify the Holocaust—as Shenkman inquires whether Americans are capable of voting in the nation's or even their own best interests. Although Shenkman clearly derives some pleasure in pointing out the stupidity and irrationality of the American public, his concern is genuine and heartfelt. In lucid, playful prose, he illustrates how politicians have repeatedly misled voters and analyzes the dumbing down of American politics via marketing, spin machines and misinformation. Shenkman initiates an important conversation in this book and makes welcome suggestions to reinvigorate civic responsibility and provide people with the knowledge and tools necessary to efficaciously participate in the political process.
Populists and their so-called "elitist" enemies need to read Shenkman's Salon article about Kerry. He writes:
In Kerry's defense it should be noted that nothing he said was actually the least bit controversial -- if one takes into account the facts, something admittedly that is not terribly popular in American politics. Studies since the 1940s have consistently shown that Americans by and large don't pay much attention to politics, and when they do it is apt to be because somebody has nicely captured their feelings about the times in a reductionist bumper sticker slogan.
Just how ignorant are Americans? Three facts. Only one out of two know the Constitution was drafted in Philadelphia. Only one in five know there are a hundred U.S. senators. Only two in five can name the three branches of government. Please note that in each case the part of the electorate that has been found to be knowledgeable about our history and our government is in the minority.
Poor John Kerry. He has the facts on his side and thinks that matters. Does the man not understand how politics is played these days? How it has been played for going on 40 years, ever since George Wallace denounced pointy-headed intellectuals and Richard Nixon discovered the virtues of the Silent Majority?
Does he not remember being demonized as an effete, wine-swilling, French-speaking, surfer boy-man who hunts in clean clothes and resides in a mansion?
I have some news for Mr. Kerry. Nothing's changed since 2004. We are the same country we were then, Barack Obama's election notwithstanding. Even Obama had to sing about hope and change and Yes, we can as if those were more than empty slogans. (His biographer tells us Obama was embarrassed by the latter slogan. Good for him.)
If the senator wants to join the nascent movement to restore civics to the school curricula -- a movement I heartily embrace -- by all means let him do so by giving a serious address on the subject from the floor of the Senate and then rallying his fellow solons to provide the necessary funding. But he should not be tossing off bons mots in passing about ignorant voters. That plays right into the hands of the Republicans, who are all too ready to rally voters by appealing to faux cultural populist motifs...
As for Republicans. Please! Just because you can play the populist card to great effect doesn't mean you should. Let me pretend to be Jon Stewart for a moment. Aside. Camera two ... Can't we agree that it's cheeky to claim to be on the side of the little guy while favoring tax breaks for the wealthy, as you guys keep doing? Isn't that a bit rich? You can't play the race card anymore because racism is now politically incorrect, but it's OK to play the populist card? Shouldn't that be politically incorrect, too?
Back to camera one. Folks of both left and right: We can do better, can't we? Don't we have to? If only we put as much effort into arming voters with the facts as we do manipulating them, might we not have smarter politics? Don't smarter voters equal smarter politics? Hey, it's just a thought. But don't we want to live in a country with smart voters?
Kerry is right about the ignorance of the American electorate. Shenkman's research proves this. The founding fathers--those so-called demigods that we all appeal to for the answers to all our problems--would not be happy about this ignorance. They all believed that an informed and educated citizenry was essential to the success of the American republic. To put it differently, they were the first "elitists."
By calling for an educated citizenry Kerry finds himself a victim of the populist democratic culture of America. American's don't like elitists, especially now. Actually, Kerry sounds a lot like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams in the early decades of the 19th century. These two founders wrote letters to each other lamenting the emergence of this populist democratic culture.
Shenkman is right to suggest that Kerry made a poor political move here. But Kerry's remarks were bad only if we define what is good and bad based upon the ethical system (if we can call it that) of American politics. And if this is the case, as I am afraid it now is, God help us.
Help! I think I am becoming an elitist!!
Obama: Christian by Choice
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — President Barack Obama, in a rare discussion about his religious beliefs, described himself on Tuesday as a "Christian by choice" who arrived at his faith in adulthood because "the precepts of Jesus Christ" helped him envision the kind of life he wanted to lead.
Obama talked about his beliefs when he was asked, "Why are you a Christian." The question was posed by a woman at a backyard conversation here, part of a series of meetings Obama is holding to talk informally with Americans.
Some conservatives and political opponents have questioned Obama's Christian faith. In fact, a Pew Research Center poll in August found that 18 percent of people wrongly believe Obama is Muslim - up from 11 percent who said so in March 2009. Just 34 percent said they thought Obama is Christian.
"I'm a Christian by choice," Obama told his audience here. "My family didn't - frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn't raise me in the church.
So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead - being my brothers' and sisters' keeper, treating others as they would treat me," he continued.
"And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God," Obama said. "But what we can do, as flawed as we are, is still see God in other people and do our best to help them find their own grace."
Obama said he seeks to do that through daily prayer and public service. "That's what I strive to do. That's what I pray to do every day," he said. "I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith."
Obama is the son of a Muslim father from Kenya. His mother was from Kansas. As a boy, he lived for several years in predominantly Muslim Indonesia with his mother and Indonesian stepfather. Some think his full name, Barack Hussein Obama, sounds Muslim.
Obama turned his extended reply to the question about his faith into a subtle call for religious tolerance.
"One thing I want to emphasize, having spoken about something that obviously relates to me very personally, as president of the United States I'm also somebody who deeply believes that part of the bedrock strength of this country is that it embraces people of many faiths and no faith," he said. "That this is a country that is still predominantly Christian, but we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and that their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own."
"That's part of what makes this country what it is," Obama said...
Barack Obama and the Virgin Mary
It turns out that Obama "always carries with him a photograph with an image of Mary Help of Christians."
David Gibson of Politics Daily reports:
Mary Help of Christians is the patroness of the Salesian order
According to the Salesian news service, she told the priest in charge that her husband "always carries with him a photograph with an image of Mary Help of Christians, to whom, those present reported, the first family of the United States has great devotion." of priests and nuns, and during an Aug. 13 visit to the Spanish city of Ronda with her daughter, Sasha, the first lady stopped at the Salesian community there.
For Catholics, the special prayer to Jesus through his mother Mary for divine aid is about as, well, Catholic as you can get (evidence of a particular supplication to the Virgin dates back to the 3rd century, according to some sources). It is also more evidence for my colleague Jeff Weiss's theory that Obama is actually a closet Catholic and not a crypto-Muslim, as many believe.
But Obama's Marian devotion could resonate even more deeply, as the prayer to Mary Help of Christians is associated with two of the greatest battles in history between Christendom and Islam, both victories by papal forces.
The Virgin Mary was first formally given the title of "Help of Christians" by Pope Pius V after the dramatic naval victory over the Turkish forces at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Then in 1683, the forces of Christendom beat back the 200,000 Ottoman Turks from the gates of Vienna. During the fighting, Emperor Leopold I of Austria took refuge in the Shrine of Mary Help of Christians at Pasau.
Many view those clashes as prequels to today's war between the West and radical Islam. The Blessed Virgin Mary to the rescue again?
Do You Want This Portrait of George Washington For Your Living Room or Den?
If interested, you can participate in tomorrow's auction at Christie's in New York. It looks like Charles Peale Polk's portrait of "George Washington at Princeton" will fetch somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000-$500,000.
Check out Boston 1775 for more context.
A Personal Librarian
Today I ran across an interesting article in Inside Higher Ed about a new trend in library services: the personal librarian. (And I also ran across this picture of these cool librarian action figures).Here is a taste of Steve Kolowich's reporting:
The library contacts incoming students, usually a few weeks before orientation, with a personalized letter, along with a business card, from a specific librarian introducing them to the library. The librarians might e-mail their assigned students periodically, reminding them of what services the library offers.
The obligations are not nearly the same as those between academic advisers and advisees; in fact, students are not required to meet with their personal librarian, or even acknowledge them. The important thing for the library is that students know the library has not just books but also familiar-looking people who know their names and want to help them. The idea is that getting that name might make students more likely to schedule a sit-down meeting to learn how to use the library's various interfaces, collections, and specialists. Sit-downs, or even e-mail correspondence, are much more effective than group orientations, says Patricia Tully, the university librarian at Wesleyan.
I like this idea. It is a great way of cultivating face-to-face contact in the very impersonal world of databases and other forms of technology.
Annette Gordon-Reed: Genius
Now Gordon-Reed has won a MacArthur Fellowship "genius grant." She talks about it with Al Shapiro at National Public Radio. It looks like she is going to use the money ($500,000) for another book on the Hemings family and a biography of Jefferson.
Congratulations.
Everyone is Blogging About This Today
According to this study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, most people are ignorant about religion. Check out Christopher Jones's analysis over at Religion in American History.
And guess who knows more about religion than anyone else?
Atheists.
And guess who knows more about religion than anyone else?
Atheists.
Fall Membership Drive
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Monday, September 27, 2010
Living the Amish Way
This is the follow-up to the incredibly popular and successful Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy.
Good job, Dave!
Conan Will Go Forward Without Max
Max Weinberg will not be joining Conan O'Brien at TBS in November.From the New York Times:
The good news for Max Weinberg fans is that he’ll have a lot more time to spend with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. On Monday, representatives for Conan O’Brien officially announced that Mr. Weinberg, the longtime band leader at NBC’s “Late Night” and “Tonight Show” programs, would not be joining Mr. O’Brien at his TBS series, “Conan,” which is to have its premiere on Nov. 8. Mr. Weinberg, who created the Max Weinberg 7 band for “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” in 1993, and Mr. O’Brien said in a joint statement that the departure was by mutual agreement...
The Dangers of Blogging
Ed Blum warns younger scholars, especially those without tenure, about the dangers of blogging. He offers six reasons why junior professors should be wary of this form of social media. I will try to summarize them (rather crudely, I am afraid) below.
1. Bloggers give away their ideas for free when they can get paid for them.
2. By publishing their views on the web, bloggers may neglect the benefits associated with submitting their work for peer review.
3. The ideas on blogs do not get reviewed in scholarly journals.
4. Blog posts can hurt your reputation. This could have implications for the job market and/or tenure and promotion.
5. "Reacting to every new media story is not the path of most scholarly work; it's the domain of the journalist."
6. Bloggers face the temptation of writing "flippantly" about the deeply held beliefs and values of others.
Certainly some things to think about before starting that blog. I also encourage readers to check out the growing number of comments that Blum's post is garnering.
1. Bloggers give away their ideas for free when they can get paid for them.
2. By publishing their views on the web, bloggers may neglect the benefits associated with submitting their work for peer review.
3. The ideas on blogs do not get reviewed in scholarly journals.
4. Blog posts can hurt your reputation. This could have implications for the job market and/or tenure and promotion.
5. "Reacting to every new media story is not the path of most scholarly work; it's the domain of the journalist."
6. Bloggers face the temptation of writing "flippantly" about the deeply held beliefs and values of others.
Certainly some things to think about before starting that blog. I also encourage readers to check out the growing number of comments that Blum's post is garnering.
What Will Future Generations Condemn Us For?
1. Our prison system
2. Industrial meat production
3. The institutionalized and isolated elderly
4. The environment
These four things were chosen by Princeton philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah in a recent article in The Washington Post. He also offers three signs that a particular practice is destined for future condemnation. First, "people have already heard the arguments against the practice." Second, "defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity." Third, "supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they're complicit."
What do you think? What would you at to Appiah's list?
2. Industrial meat production
3. The institutionalized and isolated elderly
4. The environment
These four things were chosen by Princeton philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah in a recent article in The Washington Post. He also offers three signs that a particular practice is destined for future condemnation. First, "people have already heard the arguments against the practice." Second, "defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity." Third, "supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they're complicit."
What do you think? What would you at to Appiah's list?
Can You Be Rich and Religious?
Over at Brainstorm, Laurie Fendrich explores the inherent tensions between wealth and the Judeo-Christian tradition and how adherents to this tradition have managed to alleviate the tension. Here is a taste:
The wealthy are all over the Old Testament (Abraham, Solomon, David, et al—even Job, after God was through testing him), indicating wealth in itself isn’t a particular problem, but this is balanced by prophets (such as Amos) who condemn the many instances where wealth is unjust. The New Testament is loud and clear: Wealth is a problem. Jesus said that getting into heaven was mighty hard for the wealthy, and their best bet was to give away their wealth.
If we return to the pagan Aristotle, we recall that people are naturally greedy, which leads as straight as an L.A. freeway to the larger problem of social justice. Representatives of institutionalized religions often chime in with ideas about social justice. In one of those startling coincidences (irony here, in case you’re missing it), most opinions offered by most organized religions jibe nicely with bourgeois, capitalist values.
The history of both Judaism and Christianity includes centuries of clever hermeneutics that adeptly torture reasoning until they flip-flop on what, on the face of it, is the meaning of original texts. Fancy arguments have been made to justify all sorts of things that God supposedly meant in the sacred texts—among the more astonishing, that God actually meant to say he loves the wealthy as much if not more than the poor and that it’s hunky dory for the wealthy to not only keep their wealth, but use it and display it in any way they see fit. Hence the Pope wears Prada shoes, the Catholic Church owns billions of dollars worth of art, the Hassidic community in Brooklyn invests heavily in speculative real estate, and more than one powerful fundamentalist Christian preacher somehow requires a private jet.
OK readers, have at it.
The wealthy are all over the Old Testament (Abraham, Solomon, David, et al—even Job, after God was through testing him), indicating wealth in itself isn’t a particular problem, but this is balanced by prophets (such as Amos) who condemn the many instances where wealth is unjust. The New Testament is loud and clear: Wealth is a problem. Jesus said that getting into heaven was mighty hard for the wealthy, and their best bet was to give away their wealth.
If we return to the pagan Aristotle, we recall that people are naturally greedy, which leads as straight as an L.A. freeway to the larger problem of social justice. Representatives of institutionalized religions often chime in with ideas about social justice. In one of those startling coincidences (irony here, in case you’re missing it), most opinions offered by most organized religions jibe nicely with bourgeois, capitalist values.
The history of both Judaism and Christianity includes centuries of clever hermeneutics that adeptly torture reasoning until they flip-flop on what, on the face of it, is the meaning of original texts. Fancy arguments have been made to justify all sorts of things that God supposedly meant in the sacred texts—among the more astonishing, that God actually meant to say he loves the wealthy as much if not more than the poor and that it’s hunky dory for the wealthy to not only keep their wealth, but use it and display it in any way they see fit. Hence the Pope wears Prada shoes, the Catholic Church owns billions of dollars worth of art, the Hassidic community in Brooklyn invests heavily in speculative real estate, and more than one powerful fundamentalist Christian preacher somehow requires a private jet.
OK readers, have at it.
Dispatches from Graduate School: Part 1
The post below is the first in a continuing blog series on graduate school life. These dispatches will come from Cali Pitchel McCullough, a Ph.D student in American history at Arizona State University.
Cali graduated from Messiah College in 2007 with a degree in American history. While at Messiah she played on the 2005 team that won the NCAA Division III National Championship in women's soccer (she was a member of the all-tournament team). She also worked as a research assistant for a certain historian familiar to the readers of this blog. In 2009 Cali completed an M.A. in American Studies at Penn State. She is also a darn good photographer. (See her photo above). Cali lives in Arizona with her husband Quinn.
We are thrilled that Cali will be writing this regular column. Enjoy!--JF
We are thrilled that Cali will be writing this regular column. Enjoy!--JF
Friday, September 24, 2010.
The past two weeks have been hard. Really hard. Mentally, emotionally, and even physically. I read, I write, I grade—and then I start all over again. The cycle exhausts me. The demands are high and only now can I (shamefully) say that I perhaps entered graduate school with an air of overconfidence.
In the weeks leading up to the program I thought I might be able to swing a part-time job (in case you didn’t know, graduate student stipends provide for little else than the basic necessities). I sifted the classifieds hoping to land a well-paying job suitable for daydreaming and maybe some extra reading. My advisor sharply discouraged me from looking for “support” elsewhere, and he even threatened to rescind my funding. I thought he was overreacting, but I took his advice and decided to start the program despite the dire economic outlook. Turns out, he was right. Reading and writing 50 hours a week and grading for another 10-15 does not allow for time to make extra cash.
In a borderline weepy moment—just a prelude of what’s to come, I’m sure—I lamented to my husband that “graduate school is too hard.” He reminded me that I am in fact pursuing a Ph.D. It’s not supposed to be easy. Although I would have preferred for him to indulge me, he did offer some much needed perspective. He suggested I compare my four-year journey towards a doctoral degree to a marathon. A student must train for an advanced degree in the same way a runner must train for a long road-race. Not only do I have to cultivate mental endurance, I need to find the tools necessary to support my training. A seasoned runner understands the importance of a training schedule, but also of the correct shoes, adequate rest, and proper hydration.
I made the novice mistake of believing that a B.A. and an M.A. are the only prerequisites to the granting of a Ph.D. While my previous schooling set the stage for further graduate study, I underestimated the fact that the first years of the program are indeed still training. I thought the prep-work was complete; I was wearing my well-worn sneakers and ready to cross the finish line on day one. I eagerly anticipated exploring primary sources and thought ceaselessly about the questions that might define my own research. But as I try to catch my breath after Hegel, Marx, and Weber, I’ve come to find out that I’m not quite as fit as I thought.
I have a choice: I can say that the course looks too hard and I don’t have what it takes to tackle such large hills and high winds, or I can commit to the next four-years with the intensity essential to not only tackle the hills, but to cross the finish line at a sprint. My biggest obstacle will be putting my long runs into perspective. I must dash through Hegelian philosophy and Marxist theory because the intellectual exercise will help me one day finish the race. Here’s to my steady (and hopefully injury-free) scholarly marathon!
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday Night Odds and Ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week:
Why everyone has to be a historian in the digital age.
How to get yourself into hot water at Calvin College.
What about ideological and intellectual diversity?
Is the Tea Party movement a women's movement?
Joseph Knippenberg reflects on God and country.
The Necessary South
Pocahontas reconsidered.
Obama forgets the "Creator."
J.L. Bell reviews Neil York, The Boston Massacre: A History With Documents.
Advice for college students from graduate students.
The environment, place, local knowledge, and Wendell Berry.
Sean Hannity and evangelicals.
The North was built on slavery.
Madden's Raiders.
Tea Party posters and T-shirts.
Pay to preview at Amazon?
Review of 3 Tea Party books.
Why everyone has to be a historian in the digital age.
How to get yourself into hot water at Calvin College.
What about ideological and intellectual diversity?
Is the Tea Party movement a women's movement?
Joseph Knippenberg reflects on God and country.
The Necessary South
Pocahontas reconsidered.
Obama forgets the "Creator."
J.L. Bell reviews Neil York, The Boston Massacre: A History With Documents.
Advice for college students from graduate students.
The environment, place, local knowledge, and Wendell Berry.
Sean Hannity and evangelicals.
The North was built on slavery.
Madden's Raiders.
Tea Party posters and T-shirts.
Pay to preview at Amazon?
Review of 3 Tea Party books.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
What's The Hold-Up on the National Women's History Museum?
...two senators, Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, have put holds on the bill. A hold is one of those quaint Senate traditions that ensures that each individual member of the chamber will have the power to bring all activity to a screeching and permanent halt.
The bill’s supporters seem to feel that DeMint, who is now famous as a leader of the new Republican far right, is the chief obstacle to getting the project sprung. He was raised by a single mother who helped support her family by running a dance studio. He also has daughters. Perhaps he just puts holds on things as a matter of habit, like a compulsive twitch, and does not have any actual objection to celebrating the American women’s story in the nation’s capital. Perhaps he will call up Collins on Monday and tell her it was all a terrible mistake.
Coburn’s office said the senator was concerned that taxpayers might be asked to chip in later and also felt that the museum was unnecessary since “it duplicates more than 100 existing entities that have a similar mission.”
The office sent me a list of the entities in question. They include the Quilters Hall of Fame in Indiana, the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Texas and the Hulda Klager Lilac Gardens in Washington.
Learning Civility in a Small Town
Check out Katherine Dalton's post at Front Porch Republic on how she learned how to be civil by living in a small town. Here is my favorite paragraph: If there are cars at the funeral home, and there’s no message on your answering machine, call and find out who it is. Odds are three to two it’s somebody you know, or his uncle. And keep your suit pressed, because you will be at the funeral home a lot—so much so that your city friends won’t begin to understand it. But no man is an island in a little place.
Christian America at Messiah College Family Weekend
Here were my major points:
1. I am a historian. This is a history book
2. The question I ask in the title of the book is a complicated one and is not easily answered without defining our terms.
3. The United States of America has always been understood as a Christian nation, but such an understanding has taken different forms.
4. Religious language and, at times, Christian language, was present during the American Revolution (1765-1776), but it was not the primary reason for rebelling against England. (This assertion seemed to raise the most red flags for my audience today).
5. The clergy used the Bible and Christianity in some very "interesting" ways to justify Revolution and American independence.
6. After the American Revolution the relationship between religion and government was left up to the states.
7. Few of the most prominent founding fathers were deists. Few of the most prominent founding fathers were orthodox Christians.
The History Behind Atlantic City
As some of you may have noticed, a new HBO series, Boardwalk Empire, premiered last weekend. The series is set in the 1920s Atlantic City during Prohibition. The story focuses on the life of Nucky Thompson, the city's Treasurer. He is described as the "undisputed ruler of Atlantic City...a political fixer and backroom dealer who is equal parts politician and gangster and equally uncomfortable in either role." Thompson is the main player in the city's rum-running activities. Apart from the fact that I will always associate actor Steve Buscemi (who plays Nucky) with Dave Veltri, the drunk Adam Sandler wanna-be in the Wedding Singer, this series looks pretty good. Unfortunately, I will not watch any of it since we do not have HBO.
Boardwalk Empire taps into my ongoing fascination with the history of the Jersey Shore. Perhaps this movie will refocus the nation's attention away from the awful MTV series "Jersey Shore" and get people to think more about the history of the Garden State's fascinating coastline.
With that in mind, I was glad to see an interview at the Oxford University Press blog with Bryant Simon, author of one of my favorite books on the Jersey Shore and Atlantic City: Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America. Check it out here.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Ron Chernow: Tea Party Has a One-Sided Reading of History
An excerpt from The New York Times:
Many Tea Party candidates and activists have tried to seize the moral high ground by explicitly identifying with the founders. Sharron Angle, who is mounting a spirited run against Harry Reid for a Senate seat from Nevada with Tea Party support, bristled at Mr. Reid’s contention that she is overly conservative. “I’m sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin,” she protested. “And, truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings ... you might draw those conclusions: That they were conservative. They were fiscally conservative and socially conservative.”
The Tea Party movement has further sought to spruce up its historical bona fides by laying claim to the United States Constitution. Many Tea Party members subscribe to a literal reading of the national charter as a way of bolstering their opposition to deficit spending, bank bailouts and President Obama’s health care plan. A Tea Party manifesto, called the Contract From America, even contains a rigid provision stipulating that all legislation passed by Congress should specify the precise clause in the Constitution giving Congress the power to pass such a law — an idea touted Thursday by the House Republican leadership.
But any movement that regularly summons the ghosts of the founders as a like-minded group of theorists ends up promoting an uncomfortably one-sided reading of history.
The truth is that the disputatious founders — who were revolutionaries, not choir boys — seldom agreed about anything. Never has the country produced a more brilliantly argumentative, individualistic or opinionated group of politicians. Far from being a soft-spoken epoch of genteel sages, the founding period was noisy and clamorous, rife with vitriolic polemics and partisan backbiting. Instead of bequeathing to posterity a set of universally shared opinions, engraved in marble, the founders shaped a series of fiercely fought debates that reverberate down to the present day. Right along with the rest of America, the Tea Party has inherited these open-ended feuds, which are profoundly embedded in our political culture.
As a general rule, the founders favored limited government, reserving a special wariness for executive power, but they clashed sharply over those limits...
Many Tea Party candidates and activists have tried to seize the moral high ground by explicitly identifying with the founders. Sharron Angle, who is mounting a spirited run against Harry Reid for a Senate seat from Nevada with Tea Party support, bristled at Mr. Reid’s contention that she is overly conservative. “I’m sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin,” she protested. “And, truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings ... you might draw those conclusions: That they were conservative. They were fiscally conservative and socially conservative.”
The Tea Party movement has further sought to spruce up its historical bona fides by laying claim to the United States Constitution. Many Tea Party members subscribe to a literal reading of the national charter as a way of bolstering their opposition to deficit spending, bank bailouts and President Obama’s health care plan. A Tea Party manifesto, called the Contract From America, even contains a rigid provision stipulating that all legislation passed by Congress should specify the precise clause in the Constitution giving Congress the power to pass such a law — an idea touted Thursday by the House Republican leadership.
But any movement that regularly summons the ghosts of the founders as a like-minded group of theorists ends up promoting an uncomfortably one-sided reading of history.
The truth is that the disputatious founders — who were revolutionaries, not choir boys — seldom agreed about anything. Never has the country produced a more brilliantly argumentative, individualistic or opinionated group of politicians. Far from being a soft-spoken epoch of genteel sages, the founding period was noisy and clamorous, rife with vitriolic polemics and partisan backbiting. Instead of bequeathing to posterity a set of universally shared opinions, engraved in marble, the founders shaped a series of fiercely fought debates that reverberate down to the present day. Right along with the rest of America, the Tea Party has inherited these open-ended feuds, which are profoundly embedded in our political culture.
As a general rule, the founders favored limited government, reserving a special wariness for executive power, but they clashed sharply over those limits...
Most Popular Posts of the Last Week
Here are the most visited posts of the past week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home.
1. Super-Sizing DaVinci's Last Supper (March 2010)
2. The Cover Art is Here (September 2010)
3. Who is Phil Davison? (September 2010)
4. Religion in Jamestown (July 2009)
5. Glenn Beck's Black Robe Brigade and the Plight of the Local Pastor (September 2010)
6. What's the Point of History in the Age of the Internet? (September 2010)
7. Why We Need Anne Hutchinson (February 2010)
8. Get a Traditional Liberal Arts Education--It is the Only Thing That Will Do You Any Good (September 2010)
9. Sam Tanenhaus on Obama's Faith (September 2010)
10. History Dorkitude (September 2010)
1. Super-Sizing DaVinci's Last Supper (March 2010)
2. The Cover Art is Here (September 2010)
3. Who is Phil Davison? (September 2010)
4. Religion in Jamestown (July 2009)
5. Glenn Beck's Black Robe Brigade and the Plight of the Local Pastor (September 2010)
6. What's the Point of History in the Age of the Internet? (September 2010)
7. Why We Need Anne Hutchinson (February 2010)
8. Get a Traditional Liberal Arts Education--It is the Only Thing That Will Do You Any Good (September 2010)
9. Sam Tanenhaus on Obama's Faith (September 2010)
10. History Dorkitude (September 2010)
Bing Crosby and the 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates
How a near pristine black-and-white reel of the entire television broadcast of the deciding game of the 1960 World Series — long believed to be lost forever — came to rest in the dry and cool wine cellar of Bing Crosby’s home near San Francisco is not a mystery to those who knew him.
Crosby loved baseball, but as a part owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates he was too nervous to watch the Series against the Yankees, so he and his wife went to Paris, where they listened by radio.
“He said, ‘I can’t stay in the country,’ ” his widow, Kathryn Crosby, said. “ ‘I’ll jinx everybody.’ ”
He knew he would want to watch the game later — if his Pirates won — so he hired a company to record Game 7 by kinescope, an early relative of the DVR, filming off a television monitor. The five-reel set, found in December in Crosby’s home, is the only known complete copy of the game, in which Pirates second baseman Bill Mazeroski hit a game-ending home run to beat the Yankees, 10-9. It is considered one of the greatest games ever played.
Is the Tea Party Religious?
More from On Faith:
The editors ask a group of panelists if the Tea Party is religious. Here is a synopsis of the responses:
Ronald Rychiak reminds us that the Tea Party is not a religious group, despite the fact that it has attracted many, many people of faith. Valerie Elverton Dixon agrees. So does Danielle Bean and Susan Brooks Thistlewaite.
Colleen Carroll Campbell sees a natural fit between Christianity and the Tea Party. She writes: "They (conservative Christians) resonate with Tea Party resistance to big government because they know that a domineering federal government threatens their most cherished freedoms: the freedom to worship as they wish; to speak publicly of their moral and religious convictions on controversial issues; and to educate their children in the faith and values that they hold dear. Their belief in original sin makes many religious conservatives suspicious of the idea that our human condition can be perfected through the right government program or political ideology."
Jordan Sekulow, a Tea Partyer and social conservative, sees no difference between the Tea Party and the cause of the Religious Right and resents the media's attempt to draw a rift between the two factions.
Susan K. Smith suggests that the Tea Party is a reactionary movement that does not like change. Much of her piece seems to imply that the "change" the Tea Party does not like revolves around race. Similarly, Samuel Rodriguez concludes that the Tea Party is "too male, too old and too white."
Janet Edwards thinks the Tea Party is trying to serve both God and mammon. Debra Hoffner uses her 800 words to criticize Christine O'Donnell, while John Mark Reynolds uses his allotted space to offer a Christian critique of big government.
Matthew Schmalz thinks the Tea Party has become a "religion" in and of itself.
Herb Silverman sees himself in the Tea Party, at least the part of the Tea Party concerned with freedom, controlling government spending, strengthening the military, championing life, and protecting marriage. By the way, Silverman is the President of the Secular Coalition for America.
The editors ask a group of panelists if the Tea Party is religious. Here is a synopsis of the responses:
Ronald Rychiak reminds us that the Tea Party is not a religious group, despite the fact that it has attracted many, many people of faith. Valerie Elverton Dixon agrees. So does Danielle Bean and Susan Brooks Thistlewaite.
Colleen Carroll Campbell sees a natural fit between Christianity and the Tea Party. She writes: "They (conservative Christians) resonate with Tea Party resistance to big government because they know that a domineering federal government threatens their most cherished freedoms: the freedom to worship as they wish; to speak publicly of their moral and religious convictions on controversial issues; and to educate their children in the faith and values that they hold dear. Their belief in original sin makes many religious conservatives suspicious of the idea that our human condition can be perfected through the right government program or political ideology."
Jordan Sekulow, a Tea Partyer and social conservative, sees no difference between the Tea Party and the cause of the Religious Right and resents the media's attempt to draw a rift between the two factions.
Susan K. Smith suggests that the Tea Party is a reactionary movement that does not like change. Much of her piece seems to imply that the "change" the Tea Party does not like revolves around race. Similarly, Samuel Rodriguez concludes that the Tea Party is "too male, too old and too white."
Janet Edwards thinks the Tea Party is trying to serve both God and mammon. Debra Hoffner uses her 800 words to criticize Christine O'Donnell, while John Mark Reynolds uses his allotted space to offer a Christian critique of big government.
Matthew Schmalz thinks the Tea Party has become a "religion" in and of itself.
Herb Silverman sees himself in the Tea Party, at least the part of the Tea Party concerned with freedom, controlling government spending, strengthening the military, championing life, and protecting marriage. By the way, Silverman is the President of the Secular Coalition for America.
Evangelical Introverts
From the Washington Post's "On Faith" website:
The scowling old man nearly bumped into me as he fled the sanctuary.
As I turned to watch him stomp out to the parking lot, I asked a friend if she knew why he'd left before the service started. She replied, "You know how in your sermon last week you encouraged all of us to be more welcoming to newcomers? Well, after five people came up to him to introduce themselves, he blurted "Can a guy just be anonymous when he checks out a new place? I want to be left alone!" And thus concluded his seven minute survey of our church.
Adam S. McCugh, a Presbyterian minister, empathizes with this man. He empathizes so much he decided to write a book about guys like him.
The scowling old man nearly bumped into me as he fled the sanctuary.
As I turned to watch him stomp out to the parking lot, I asked a friend if she knew why he'd left before the service started. She replied, "You know how in your sermon last week you encouraged all of us to be more welcoming to newcomers? Well, after five people came up to him to introduce themselves, he blurted "Can a guy just be anonymous when he checks out a new place? I want to be left alone!" And thus concluded his seven minute survey of our church.
Adam S. McCugh, a Presbyterian minister, empathizes with this man. He empathizes so much he decided to write a book about guys like him.
Why Populists Hate Liberalism and Have Always Hated Liberalism
For whatever reason, today we have wondered a bit out of our comfort zone here at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. Yet I find all the stuff our there on Progressivism to be so interesting I can't stop posting about it.
William Hogeland has a very thought-provoking piece at the Boston Review on the populism of the Tea Party and how the movement's disdain for liberalism is not unlike the disdain for liberals that characterized the populism of the late nineteenth century.
Populists have always attacked "the elites' dismissal of ordinary people's judgments, determinations, and desires." Hogeland warns us not to fall into the same trap as Richard Hofstadter and others who simply dismissed the populists as "paranoid" and "anti-intellectual."
He concludes:
...history suggests that American populists’ rejection of liberalism is a matter of principle, not of interest. Liberalism has long defined itself from a position of expertise and wisdom that it justifies as meritocracy, and for which it keeps reflexively congratulating itself. Whether lampooning populist farmers as rank yokels, or giving way to a thrilling panic about coast-to-coast violence, or patronizing millions of people’s supposed misguided tropisms, or even, like Lepore, subjecting right-wing enthusiasms to the reflective, nuanced consideration identical with today’s high-quality journalism, liberal claims to a monopoly on knowledge may be even more undemocratic than conservatives’ policies for distributing wealth upward. In America the deadlock between liberalism and populism may be unbreakable.
William Hogeland has a very thought-provoking piece at the Boston Review on the populism of the Tea Party and how the movement's disdain for liberalism is not unlike the disdain for liberals that characterized the populism of the late nineteenth century.
Populists have always attacked "the elites' dismissal of ordinary people's judgments, determinations, and desires." Hogeland warns us not to fall into the same trap as Richard Hofstadter and others who simply dismissed the populists as "paranoid" and "anti-intellectual."
He concludes:
...history suggests that American populists’ rejection of liberalism is a matter of principle, not of interest. Liberalism has long defined itself from a position of expertise and wisdom that it justifies as meritocracy, and for which it keeps reflexively congratulating itself. Whether lampooning populist farmers as rank yokels, or giving way to a thrilling panic about coast-to-coast violence, or patronizing millions of people’s supposed misguided tropisms, or even, like Lepore, subjecting right-wing enthusiasms to the reflective, nuanced consideration identical with today’s high-quality journalism, liberal claims to a monopoly on knowledge may be even more undemocratic than conservatives’ policies for distributing wealth upward. In America the deadlock between liberalism and populism may be unbreakable.
Philip-ians
Eric Miller at Geneva College is teaching The Way of Improvement Leads Home this semester. In his discussion of Philip Vickers Fithian and the Enlightenment in America, Eric put the students into discussion groups. One group of students insisted on calling themselves "The Philip-ians."
I like it! If you want to join the ranks of the Philip-ians you can join the Philip Vickers Fithian Fan Club on Facebook. Get to know your fellow Philip-ians out there!
I like it! If you want to join the ranks of the Philip-ians you can join the Philip Vickers Fithian Fan Club on Facebook. Get to know your fellow Philip-ians out there!
Debating Progressivism
Yesterday I linked to an article by Georgetown graduate student Conor Williams that challenged the Right's view of the Progressive Movement. At the end of that post I took the side of Williams and suggested that there is much about the Progressive Movement that could be tied to historic American values.
In the comments section of that post, Jonathan Den Hartog called my attention to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Ronald Pestritto that argues that Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg, and others are correct when they say that the Progressive Movement ran counter to the beliefs of the founders. I encourage you to read Pestritto's article, but in the meantime here is a taste:
Whatever I or anyone else thinks about Mr. Beck's programming or political views, on one central historical issue he is correct: The progressive movement did indeed repudiate the principles of individual liberty and limited government that were the basis of the American republic. America's original progressives were convinced that the country faced a set of social and economic problems demanding a sharp increase in federal power. They also said that there was too much emphasis placed on protecting the liberty of individuals at the expense of broader social justice. So did this make them socialists—a charge frequently leveled by Mr. Beck?
Fair enough. As I mentioned briefly in my last post on this subject, I have no overwhelming desire to carry water for the Progressive Movement. I am also one of the last people qualified to jump into a debate over the relationship between the Progressive Movement and its relationship to the American founding. So I will appeal to the experts here.
But I have read a tiny bit about American socialism and have been influenced in my historical thinking on these matters by Nick Salvatore's biography of Eugene Debs, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Salvatore convinced me that one could make a pretty good historical argument that American socialism, at least the Debs variety, drew upon ideas that were deeply embedded in the American tradition.
Can someone help me sort this all out?
In the comments section of that post, Jonathan Den Hartog called my attention to a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Ronald Pestritto that argues that Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg, and others are correct when they say that the Progressive Movement ran counter to the beliefs of the founders. I encourage you to read Pestritto's article, but in the meantime here is a taste:
Whatever I or anyone else thinks about Mr. Beck's programming or political views, on one central historical issue he is correct: The progressive movement did indeed repudiate the principles of individual liberty and limited government that were the basis of the American republic. America's original progressives were convinced that the country faced a set of social and economic problems demanding a sharp increase in federal power. They also said that there was too much emphasis placed on protecting the liberty of individuals at the expense of broader social justice. So did this make them socialists—a charge frequently leveled by Mr. Beck?
Fair enough. As I mentioned briefly in my last post on this subject, I have no overwhelming desire to carry water for the Progressive Movement. I am also one of the last people qualified to jump into a debate over the relationship between the Progressive Movement and its relationship to the American founding. So I will appeal to the experts here.
But I have read a tiny bit about American socialism and have been influenced in my historical thinking on these matters by Nick Salvatore's biography of Eugene Debs, Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Salvatore convinced me that one could make a pretty good historical argument that American socialism, at least the Debs variety, drew upon ideas that were deeply embedded in the American tradition.
Can someone help me sort this all out?
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Help! I Want to Use Zotero But I am Afraid to Make the Jump!
I just got done reading a great and inspiring piece by Jonathan Rees, professor of history at Colorado State-Pueblo, on the wonders of Zotero.
At the moment I have no real system of notetaking. I used index cards for my dissertation. I used notes taken in Word documents for my next two books. I need to bring some organizational structure to my research, but I don't have the nerve to make the jump to a program like Zotero.
I need some moral support. Help me make the jump to Zotero before it becomes as irrelevant as notecards and I need to learn something else.
NOTE: OK, I just checked my blog archives and it looks like I wrote a similar post with a similar cry for help back in July 2009.
At the moment I have no real system of notetaking. I used index cards for my dissertation. I used notes taken in Word documents for my next two books. I need to bring some organizational structure to my research, but I don't have the nerve to make the jump to a program like Zotero.
I need some moral support. Help me make the jump to Zotero before it becomes as irrelevant as notecards and I need to learn something else.
NOTE: OK, I just checked my blog archives and it looks like I wrote a similar post with a similar cry for help back in July 2009.
Saturday is Museum Day
Go to this site and download a free ticket to a museum near you!
It looks like the closest participating museum to me is the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg.
It looks like the closest participating museum to me is the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg.
Bruce Turns 61
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| Photo by Kella MacPhee |
A soon-to-be married couple ware having professional pictures taken of them this past Monday in Manasquan, right by the Point Pleasant Beach inlet, when they happened to run into Mr. Springsteen. Bruce used the soon-to-be groom’s guitar to serenade the couple. We haven't heard what song he sang to them.
Bruce posed for a few photos with them and here's one by photographer Kella MacPhee.
As Carly Simon once sang "It's the stuff that dreams are made of."
Happy Birthday Bruce. Looking forward to seeing you back on stage soon.
Defending Progressivism
Conor Williams, a graduate student in government at Georgetown University, offers a historical corrective to the recent disparagement of the Progressive Movement by conservatives. Here is a snippet:
So what does American progressivism mean? Start with what it’s not. The Right has long claimed that the Left represents a radical departure from traditional American understandings of individualism, liberty, equality, and justice. Just as those at Tea Party protests demand their country back from usurping politicians, conservative intellectuals have taken to maintaining that American progressivism somehow betrays the American political experiment, feeding right-wing charges that progressives are unpatriotic or out of step with the rest of the nation.
This position rests upon poor intellectual history and strained interpretations of progressive principles. The most substantive of their charges are based on small or irrelevant moments in progressive thought or history taken out of context, while their wilder charges are based on pure rhetorical frustration. Simply put: progressives are not nihilists, nor are they opposed to the American Constitution, nor are they socialists with a utopian faith in inevitable progress. Nothing could be further from the case. Let us take up each of these charges in turn...
He continues:
Hope for the future only suggests that the future may have something better in store. To be a progressive is to believe that we can address present difficulties, and that creatively facing them is preferable to resignation. To be a progressive is to admit that dogmatic certainty has no place in a complex world with many moving parts, and that the best we can offer each other is a commitment to engage, experiment, and reevaluate our choices. American progressives are committed to working within the American tradition to solve problems prompted by changes to the American community. They argue for political change on the grounds that it is suggested by core commitments from the American past. Progressives argue that what was once considered fair or just may no longer be honestly seen as such.
For example, during the civil rights movement, progressives claimed that equal political treatment of all Americans was a core principle in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution’s Preamble, and its fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, even if the United States had in practice allowed racial segregation. This was a rejoinder to those who believed that such political problems could be solved by applying inflexible rules or by blind adherence to antiquated interpretations of natural rights. It should come as no surprise, then, that Obama’s attempts to reform significant elements of the political status quo are prompting such feverish attacks from opponents. In essence, they want desperately to believe that new problems can be solved in old ways: without change, and certainly without innovation. The interconnectedness of America’s many political problems—extensive military commitments, a struggling economy, and a growing deficit, foremost among them—makes it clear that still more substantial political reform, and imaginative projection of national ideals, is needed.
Progressive politics are founded upon a commitment to the dialogue and debate necessary for constantly refining the national project. Progressives envision democratic politics as an ongoing and committed conversation, where policy choices must be defended with considered reasons and compelling proof. It is in this vein that President Obama provides an inspiring example; in the face of unabated criticism, extremist hatred, and obstructionism, he has remained committed to discussion of the facts most relevant to the issues of each day.
You can disagree with everything that the Progressive Movement stood for (and as readers of this blog know I have some serious issues with too much "progress." I am a bit of Laschian in this regard), but don't demonize Progressivism until you fully understand it. As Williams shows, one could make a legitimate historical argument that progress is deeply rooted in the American tradition.
So what does American progressivism mean? Start with what it’s not. The Right has long claimed that the Left represents a radical departure from traditional American understandings of individualism, liberty, equality, and justice. Just as those at Tea Party protests demand their country back from usurping politicians, conservative intellectuals have taken to maintaining that American progressivism somehow betrays the American political experiment, feeding right-wing charges that progressives are unpatriotic or out of step with the rest of the nation.
This position rests upon poor intellectual history and strained interpretations of progressive principles. The most substantive of their charges are based on small or irrelevant moments in progressive thought or history taken out of context, while their wilder charges are based on pure rhetorical frustration. Simply put: progressives are not nihilists, nor are they opposed to the American Constitution, nor are they socialists with a utopian faith in inevitable progress. Nothing could be further from the case. Let us take up each of these charges in turn...
He continues:
Hope for the future only suggests that the future may have something better in store. To be a progressive is to believe that we can address present difficulties, and that creatively facing them is preferable to resignation. To be a progressive is to admit that dogmatic certainty has no place in a complex world with many moving parts, and that the best we can offer each other is a commitment to engage, experiment, and reevaluate our choices. American progressives are committed to working within the American tradition to solve problems prompted by changes to the American community. They argue for political change on the grounds that it is suggested by core commitments from the American past. Progressives argue that what was once considered fair or just may no longer be honestly seen as such.
For example, during the civil rights movement, progressives claimed that equal political treatment of all Americans was a core principle in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution’s Preamble, and its fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, even if the United States had in practice allowed racial segregation. This was a rejoinder to those who believed that such political problems could be solved by applying inflexible rules or by blind adherence to antiquated interpretations of natural rights. It should come as no surprise, then, that Obama’s attempts to reform significant elements of the political status quo are prompting such feverish attacks from opponents. In essence, they want desperately to believe that new problems can be solved in old ways: without change, and certainly without innovation. The interconnectedness of America’s many political problems—extensive military commitments, a struggling economy, and a growing deficit, foremost among them—makes it clear that still more substantial political reform, and imaginative projection of national ideals, is needed.
Progressive politics are founded upon a commitment to the dialogue and debate necessary for constantly refining the national project. Progressives envision democratic politics as an ongoing and committed conversation, where policy choices must be defended with considered reasons and compelling proof. It is in this vein that President Obama provides an inspiring example; in the face of unabated criticism, extremist hatred, and obstructionism, he has remained committed to discussion of the facts most relevant to the issues of each day.
You can disagree with everything that the Progressive Movement stood for (and as readers of this blog know I have some serious issues with too much "progress." I am a bit of Laschian in this regard), but don't demonize Progressivism until you fully understand it. As Williams shows, one could make a legitimate historical argument that progress is deeply rooted in the American tradition.
Den Hartog on Islam, Immigration and Catholics
Christianity Today is running an interesting interview with historian Jonathan Den Hartog. Den Hartog compares nineteenth-century American anti-Catholicism to the recent flap over Muslim immigration. Here is a good example of how historians can bring some perspective to contemporary debates.
A taste:
A taste:
How is the place of Islam in America today analogous to the place of Catholics in the past?
One way is this concern for authority in the nation. The American ideal would be that citizens have to be self-governing and not dependent on outside forces. This was always the criticism of Catholics, that they were dependent on direction from the Pope and from their priests. This is an ongoing criticism of American Muslims. I'll hasten to add that it's not necessarily accurate, criticizing Muslims as having an outside authority—that they're bound by the Qur'an, which would be seen as an antidemocratic document. Of course there's no formal structure in Islam, but some of the passages in the Qur'an, if interpreted literally, would seem to be antidemocratic and, hence, against American republican values.
Secondly, trustworthiness: Are they just a secret column or can they be full citizens?
Let me add a third. What is the mental picture of the nation? What's the desired composition of the nation? Just as 19th-century Protestants wanted a Protestant nation, you see still this desire for a Christian nation. The sociologist Will Herberg said after the 1950s that we're a nation of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Okay. Does that mental picture also extend to Muslims? And I think many critics of Muslim immigration would say no.
The countercurrent, of course, is Barack Obama in his inaugural address when he said we're a nation not only of Christians and Jews but of Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims, and even believers in nothing at all. There are strong competing voices here between those who want a strong religious definition to citizenship and those who want to define America as entirely neutral on any religious claim. I think that's really the debate that's going on right now.
I have seen evangelicals come down on both sides of this. Richard Land, for instance, has had some public pronouncements about, for instance, the Ground Zero mosque. On the other hand, he also has issued declarations in support of immigration. So there might be a separation between the questions over immigration and questions over religion.
Can we learn anything from the 19th-century experience? It seems, ultimately, that intimidation doesn't work, that the church does not at all present a gospel face when trying to use power to intimidate minorities, but it has a much greater influence when it accepts immigration realities and seeks to work missionally in those groups. That seems to be much more productive than looking to take over the arm of the state to achieve a religious goal.
The Lonely Crowd Turns 60
In October 1950 David Riesman, Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney published The Lonely Crowd, a sociological analysis of the "American character." The Chronicle of Higher Education has a short piece, authored by Rupert Wilkinson, on the significance of this landmark work in sociology and American studies. Here is a taste:
The book spoke to middle-class concerns about conformity and softness in the new, standardized suburbs of postwar America. For all its moralistic rigidities, the inner-directed type looked more individualistic, hence more attractive to many Americans, though Riesman insisted that in other-direction he did not depict more conformity but rather a change in "modes of conformity"—the way people were induced to conform...
...It was the first book to stress a change in modern society from a culture of production and scarcity to one of consumption as a social act—from making things to relating to people, from "the hardness of the material," as the authors put it, to the softer touch of consumer-focused sales and services. In politics Riesman coined one of his many engaging labels, the "inside-dopester," to describe a person drawn to political life as a consumer, eager to be in the know rather than to make policy. (At the time of writing the book, Riesman and Glazer were much concerned about voter "apathy," which they connected to a passive, consumer view of politics.)
Read Wilkinson's full and insightful analysis here.
More Advance Praise for Was America Founded as a Christian Nation
This is a wonderful book – fascinating, timely, carefully researched, clearly written and deeply helpful. It examines the Christian Nation idea as expressed by the Founders and also as it has shaped the country ever since, and still does. As a scholar, Professor Fea leaves no doubt of his disdain for those who “cherry pick” the historical record to support contemporary arguments. Rather, he presents such a balanced view of the hard facts that neither the Christian Nation advocates nor their critics can feel totally vindicated. Would that those on all sides of this issue could read this book and, as a consequence, accept the nuances and complexities that Fea identifies so well.
Bob Abernethy, executive editor and host of PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly; co-editor of The Life of Meaning
Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction is due out in February with Westminster/John Knox Press.
Bob Abernethy, executive editor and host of PBS’s Religion & Ethics Newsweekly; co-editor of The Life of Meaning
Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction is due out in February with Westminster/John Knox Press.
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