andyrowell.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

A huge issue for Teresa of Avila in 1566 was the Spanish Inquisition Roman Catholic hierarchy not wanting a woman to pray unscripted prayers let alone write books. Some priests advocated for her while others tried to ban her. The original books before censorship are interesting!

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DMin projects in my Leadership course at Bethel Seminary - African-American women pastors - Churches helping children with autism - Army chaplain - Messianic Jewish congregations - Thai churches - South Sudanese churches - Wesleyan church - Global Methodists - Lutheran megachurch 🤯

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From Psalms and Proverbs to Jesus to Paul to these writers from the 7th century Italy, 16th century Spain, and 17th century England, there is an insistent seeking of moral integrity despite roiling emotions while also riding and using those emotions for fuel for seeking.

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One lesson from all four of the writers is their insistence on the integrity and moral example and love of the Christian leader AND their thorough self-deprecating probing of how many ways human beings stray and wobble. They are vivid and vivacious in depicting both dynamics.

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Third time teaching my course on pastoral ministry classics this summer including: Gregory the Great, Teresa of Avila, George Herbert, and Richard Baxter. Anyone love one of these people and want to tell me what you would say is their relevance and application today? Resources?

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Matthew Milliner reflects on what he is doing as a Christian professor. It is not trying to excel among secular scholarship but rather to help transcend the mere accumulation of information to further personal, social, moral, spiritual development. millinerd.substack.com/p/i-kissed-e...

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It is very common when you are helping others or acting courageously for good that people around you will say "don't worry so much about that." And you say "why not?" And all they can say is "it's not that big a deal." But it is. So keep going.

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A few current thoughts on how I'm thinking about AI and essay writing as a professor.

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I used to just not teach "emotional intelligence." I really need to start warning my students away from using it proactively because it is so pervasive. Wisdom or love can't be measured accurately and needs a moral framework. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Reading good doctoral theses remind me of kids' mystery novels (Boxcar children, Nate the Great, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie) in the sense of the detective trying different paths to figure out what is going on. May be the best training for scientists.

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I love talking with @ericries.bsky.social. We both believe that capitalism and caring about people (rather than acting like a selfish asshole) are compatible and desirable goals.

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Steve Cuss and Chuck DeGroat helpfully invite pastors to consider that there may be subtle ways we don't listen well or we exaggerate and to see that and wonder about how our confidence that we are doing good work fuels our rationalizing these vices.

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The 1990's high school buddies book club enjoyed the (young adult?) fantasy adventure novel: Mistborn: The Final Empire (2006) by Brandon Sanderson.

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Finished The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis (2018) by Alan Jacobs. Before 1905, Raïssa Oumançoff and Jacques Maritain (pp. 90-91) were considering suicide if they could not find meaning. Léon Bloy helped them. Keep writing. You may help someone.

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Finished The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War (2024) by Erik Larson. A reminder that many were obsessed with keeping slavery.

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Good from Kyle Strobel here. Along similar lines, I worry John Mark Comer's vision of discipleship is too monastic (separate from engagement in the world). Some of that is in Dallas Willard's emphasis on the spiritual discipline too but Willard's day job of USC philosophy professor mitigated this.

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Wade Mullen describes gaslighting in religious settings.

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Ambition is the air we breathe. What is it costing us? Miroslav Volf joins me to discuss his book The Cost of Ambition. He unpacks the hidden damage of a culture obsessed with competition & invite us to imagine a new way of being rooted in love, not in achievement. amyjuliabecker.com/miroslav-volf/

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Excellent Substack reflection here on the Paraclete in the book of John from the Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale.

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I always think this Lifeway Research survey is useful for getting a feel for how most pastors are feeling rather than the extreme anecdotes. Solid report from Aaron Earls (@wardrobedoor.bsky.social) Gift article: www.christianitytoday.com/2025/06/past...

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Gmail on Android offering this morning to "Summarize this email" and also taking longer to open email messages. 👎

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My review of Christian Smith’s Why Religion Went Obsolete, published in Commonweal 👉 www.commonwealmagazine.org/retreat-resu...

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Professors, what changes are you making to writing assignments because of AI? Prompts that ask for: personal reflection/application, reflection on multiple resources, and citation of short quotes from the required resources. What else? I realize in-class tests are the ideal.

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Some thoughts about McIntyre; pretty sloppy, but for what they’re worth. hedgehogreview.com/web-features...

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Gift article: www.christianitytoday.com/2025/05/full...

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The most earnest "what am I going to do with my life?" come not from my students but from prospective students. I'm tempted to prioritize my current students, not the potential ones. But these conversations are important.

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A student wrote about a typo about non-prophet organizations (non-profit!). But indeed there are organizations without enough forthright truth-tellers! But most non-profits have plenty of prophets!

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This is historical and sociological theorizing about the numerical fluctuation in Christianity (Catholicism, Protestantism, and Evangelicalism) in America. See Brad East's reflection about the decline of mainline Protestants. See link below. Then Paul Vander Klay. x.com/PaulVanderKl...

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Gift article about Gene Sharp. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/o... See also documentary about him: youtu.be/EKnoUbDIpjo?... Sharp rightly makes the case that toppling tyranny is often creative. See also Jesus, Boston Tea Party, Gandhi, and MLK.

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"Jesus is challenging us to see children and receive children... such that they are our co-disciples, co-apprentices in the kingdom... essentially, to be apprentices to love." -Emily Hunter McGowin, PhD 🎧 amyjuliabecker.com/emily-hunter...

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RIP, Alasdair MacIntyre. What you wrote was not straw. I met him a few times. I was once in a class that read everything MacIntyre had written up to that point. (Spring of 1991, at Georgetown U.) At the end of the semester, he came for a full day of discussion.

submitted 24 days ago • 1 comment