Charles Savidge in Nebraska History

I just received word from the good folks at Nebraska History that my article on Charles Savidge, a Progressive Era holiness movement pastor from Omaha, has been posted in PDF format online (it was originally published in the summer 2013 issue).

You can access the article yourself here. And yes, the mustache is absurd, even by Gilded Age standards.

My article is a fairly straightforward biography piece, focusing especially on Savidge's particular holiness movement ideology (or theology if you prefer) and how it manifested itself in various unique reform activities. In a lot of ways, my research on Savidge was the doorway through which I was able to enter into the world of American religion in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. By trying to understand the world as Savidge encountered it, I became interested in exploring other questions from the era: the social gospel, religion in the American West, urbanization, romance and love, mass media marketing strategies, interracial religious spaces, and more.

When I re-read the piece earlier today, I couldn't help but wince at my sentence construction, at the scholarship I did not interact with, and at all the other instigators of published-writers remorse. Yet, I also knew that I did probably the best I could for where I was at two years ago as a scholar. I've since started work towards my PhD and have continued to learn and grow and develop. Hopefully in two years I'll look back at work I am doing now with similar feelings of accomplishment and sheepishness.

By the way, for anyone who might be interested, I've previously posted a number of short pieces on Charles Savidge here on the blog. You can access them by clicking this link.   

Zach Lowe, Graduate Student in History

It all started a few weeks ago when my favorite NBA writer Zach Lowe posted a piece on Grantland titled "The Life and Death of Fandom." In the article Lowe wrote about his transition from being a die-hard Boston Celtics fan to a dispassionate reporter of NBA basketball. The Celtics now are dead to Lowe, as far as he's concerned. Wins or losses elicit no emotions. But he used to have a favorite player with the Celtics, back in the 2000s when Paul Pierce "was struggling to find himself" and Lowe felt the same. The old flicker of fandom came back briefly for Lowe last month when he watched a Paul Pierce tribute video before the Celtics-Nets game, leading him to write the piece. 

The article offered a uniquely personal look at Lowe, a writer who Bill Simmons jokes is like Spock due to his cold, calculating basketball analysis. And hidden within the piece were some innocuous biographical details. Lowe wrote: "I was a wannabe journalist who didn’t have the guts to pursue the career path, so I hopped around in random directions -- from teaching high school, to chasing a PhD in history, to covering high school football in Virginia just to see how it felt."

Lowe's revelation that he was once a PhD student in history fascinated me. Maybe it was because I already admired Lowe's writing, and here was a connection. In a weird way I was connecting to Lowe in the same way that he had connected to Pierce - as a fan. I was looking at someone I admire, and trying to see in myself similarities.

The story could end there, but twitter and my shamelessness (combined with that of fellow PhD students) intervened. I decided to make it my mission to figure out where Lowe had studied history and what he had studied. After a few failed attempts in the past few weeks to get a response, Lowe was finally gracious enough to play along and briefly answer my pestering inquiries. I've posted the relevant screen shots below, because why the hell not? 

It all began with this:

2013 Year in Review: Music

Before I launch my list of favorite albums released in 2013, a few caveats: 1) I'm not a music critic. Worse yet, I don't even subscribe to Pitchfork. 2) I take the Potter Stewart approach to deciding what I like: I know it when I hear it. 3) I still think my list is better than yours.

9) Drake - Nothing Was the Same

I'm a hypocrite. I like to poke fun at the ridiculousness of Drake's existential crises: Am I too rich? Am I too famous? Why do my groupies settle down with real boyfriends? But Drake still makes great music, creatively channeling R&B and hip hop into one of the best musical acts in the pop world.

Best Song: Too Much

After "The End of Our Exploring," a Reaction and Summary

I must not be up on my Christian blogosphere knowledge, because up until a month ago, I had no idea who Matthew Lee Anderson was. But then a link or retweet of some sort sent me to his Mere Orthodoxy blog, and next thing I knew, I was plowing through the Kindle version of his just-released book on a Saturday.

I have subsequently realized that Anderson was also the author of a "contrarian's-take-on-a-popular-evangelical-trend" piece for Christianity Today in March titled "Here Come the Radicals." My dad printed me off a copy to read, which may have been a not-so-subtle suggestion that he thought I needed to read it. Not sure on that score.

Anyway, onto the book at hand. Below are my thoughts and reflections on Anderson's work.

Looking Backward: Reliving the 1990 NBA Draft

There are only two types of NBA Drafts one should watch: one is the live-and-in-real-time draft, held every June.  The other type is the one in which all drafted players have ended their careers, and an assessment of their legacy can be envisioned as you watch the younger version of the NBA retiree march awkwardly up to shake David Stern’s hand.  Watching a draft from five years ago is an exercise in inanity.  Watching a draft from twenty years ago is an existential reflection on youth and innocence and society, a historical document in living color.  You may not believe me.  Thankfully, NBA TV exists, and they broadcast old drafts. I decided to jot a few notes down while watching the 1990 NBA Draft to illustrate my point 

Niebuhr's "Children of Light," a Summary and Reflection

You may not know Reinhold Niebuhr, but you know Reinhold Niebuhr. At least you do if you've ever read that "man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary," or recited the prayer "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” 

Gary Dorrien, professor at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, has called him "the most important thinker of the past century concerning the relation of Christianity to problems of social ethics and politics." Time went even further, eulogizing him as the "greatest Protestant theologian since Jonathan Edwards." His career as a pastor, theologian, professor, author, and social commentator left an indelible imprint on intellectual life in the 20th-century United States.

The NBA Comes to Omaha

Recently, a small-to-moderate number of eyes, all of them bleary from tuning into the late NBA playoff games, turned towards Sacramento, wondering if perhaps the Kings would be taking their talents (and terrible chemistry, coachability, and cohesion) to Seattle.  I, for one, didn't care one way or another. But if the Kings had ended up heading north, I would have felt no pity for Sacramento...after all, what goes around comes around.

There is no NBA franchise that has spurned more cities than the Kings. They began as the Rochester (NY) Royals in 1948, before moving to Cincinnati in time for the 1957-58 season. They ditched Cincinnati for Kansas City-Omaha in 1972 (changing their name to the Kings along the way), and then dropped Omaha in 1975. Ten years later Kansas City got the boot too, and since 1985 the Kings have found their home in Sacramento. 

As a resident of Omaha and an NBA junkie, I've always been fascinated by the fact that, for three glorious years, my city had joint custody of an actual NBA team. This post is for myself and for the tens of other NBA fans in Omaha (I think I've met all of you): a brief history of that time our mid-level Midwestern city kind of had an NBA team of its own. 

Yeezus Christ Superstar?

I read Edward Blum and Paul Harvey's fascinating The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America last year, and ever since, I've been thinking about the place that our images and perceptions of Christ have within American pop culture. So when Kanye West announced that his new album would be titled "Yeezus" it immediately caught my attention...not because it was a surprising title, but rather because it fits in so seamlessly with the regular appropriation of Jesus' name within rap culture.

Charles Savidge - Urban Revivalist

With the first post in this series on Charles Savidge, there is no better place to start than with the dour-looking fellow below.

Yes, the gentleman above is none other than the second greatest revivalist of the late-nineteenth century, Sam Jones.  For the purposes of this post, we'll ignore Jones' racism and New South political activism, and instead focus on his reform methods and connection to Savidge. Until the ascendance of Billy Sunday, no revivalist besides Dwight Moody could rival Jones' national reputation. With his quick wit and humor, Jones took the U.S. (and even Canada) by storm with a series of revivals in major cities in the 1880s.

Charles Savidge Stories

Charles Savidge was as a church planter, pastor, matchmaker, entrepreneur, revivalist, author, and social worker in Omaha from 1882 until his death in 1935. To date, he has been largely forgotten by historians, but his life certainly did not lack for excitement. To list just a few of his more interesting activities: he left the Methodist Church to start his own independent People's Church in the slums of Omaha; performed over 6,000 weddings and launched a matchmaking bureau; started a home for the elderly that is still in existence today; attempted (and failed) to merge his People's Church with a People's Church in Spokane; published four books; initiated an ill-fated campaign to cast the demons out of notorious pickpocket nicknamed "Fainting Bertha"; and received newspaper coverage from the New York Times, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Call, and countless other newspapers across the country.