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Top Ten Books of My Reading Year
Some quick notes from ten books I enjoyed or were impacted by in 2024. This doesn’t have any particular order.
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The essence of the gospel
I am opening a new (to me) biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer because I want to examine his life from the lens of a historian and biographer who does the research properly. I am wanting to engage Bonhoeffer again through his writings as well.
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Juneteenth
It is important to mark this day four years after it was set as a national holiday. It’s important to remember this year because, as whites, we’re back to some semblance of our “normal” and the maneuvering done to attack “CRT” and “woke” have helped re-establish white comfort. So, Juneteenth rolls around and people are like, “How come the mail’s…
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Our love affair with nostalgia
“Nostalgia is rarely antiquarian, a mere interest in history qua history. It is more commonly a sentimental pining for “the way it was.” Such nostalgia is always a form of arrested development. For example, there are sorts of nostalgia that are not-so-subtle longings for adolescence and thus resent adulthood. Many forms of collective nostalgia demonize the present while luxuriating in…
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Idolatry isn’t always about competing gods
One site we visited in Israel was the place where Jeroboam set up the second calf for the northern tribes to worship in the far north of Israel. The footprint of the altar area is huge and the upper part is outlined by a metal frame.
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The geography of Israel
One of the striking realities of Israel is its very limited geographical footprint. The stories become more real as I read them when I realize how the distances are not that great. Yes, they traveled by foot and that made the journeys longer in time, but to travel Israel today helps shorten up the space in the biblical accounts.
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Worth Your Time
I listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks. I came across a couple of older podcast series that had some history to them and I’ve enjoyed them.
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Dealing with difficult history
I have found a podcast series called “Presidential.” It’s a few years old now, but it takes the listener from Washington to Biden, giving each president one episode. One episode for Abraham Lincoln. One episode for Rutherford B Hayes. Quite the challenge. I am posting a link to the one on Jefferson, but you can find it on your favorite…
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January 6
We don’t need a committee to simply regurgitate what happened on Jan. 6, 2021. We need a committee that will preserve democracy on Jan. 6, 2025, and Jan. 6, 2029. We need a committee to locate the weaknesses in our democratic system and society and find ways to address them. The core problem here is not the minutiae of who…
Tag: History
