Here's an "old thing" which relates, I think, to President Obama and the debate about civil religion---the primacy of practice.…
Barack Obama
Obama’s service problem
In what has become something of an American tradition, President Barack Obama asked us to rediscover a "spirit of service"…
Choosing our better history
Obama performed some imperative, long overdue work in bidding us "to choose our better history." In doing so, he recognized…
Obama as public theologian: Old wine in new wineskins
Although comparisons between Obama and Lincoln are surely overstated---our current president has not yet shown either the rhetorical or intellectual…
Barack Obama’s Book of Virtues
"These things are old. These things are true." With these words, Barack Obama reaffirmed America's commitment to "those values upon…
Niebuhrian in the White House
Barack Obama is often described as some kind of Niebuhrian, a tag he has encouraged by describing Reinhold Niebuhr as…
Remembering Obama
What is the past through which "these things"---"honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and…
President Obama’s Catholic sensibility
President Barack Obama's May 17 commencement address at the University of Notre Dame deftly demonstrated the president's unique ability to…
Obama’s living virtues
Obama's list of virtues comes in pairs, and the pairings are mutually illuminating. I will, though, examine them not in…
“These things are old”: A new discussion series at
The Immanent Frame
Consider these words from the President's Inaugural Address: Our challenges may be new, the instruments with which we meet them…