Whatever happened to the Calvin School of Christian Historiography?

Doug Howard In a review back in 1997, Douglas A. Sweeney described with some admiration the “unparalleled leadership in the field of Christian historiography” provided by the Calvin College history department. Three books had just been published—Jim Bratt’s Abraham Kuyper: A Centennial Reader, a collection of essays edited by Ron Wells called History and the …

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The Ottoman Empire After #MeToo and Black Lives Matter (Video Recording)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--rdvueAeXY The Ottoman Empire after #MeToo and Black Lives Matter (Talk by Prof. Doug Howard, March 31, 2021) Calvin History Colloquium featuring Professor Doug Howard In talking about race, President Obama quoted Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.” This presentation explores this observation by examining the Ottoman Empire, focusing on the …

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Sixty Years Ago, A Different Refugee Crisis

by Doug Howard. My teacher, Gustav Bayerle, died in October. Watching the unfolding refugee crisis this winter has reminded me of Gustav’s experiences, sixty years ago in another refugee crisis, brought on by the 1956 Hungarian revolution. When the revolution was suppressed by the tanks and troops of the Soviet army, nearly 200,000 people left …

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Light and Hope

by Doug Howard. During this Advent season we’ve all been grieving the violence in Paris, Beirut, Baghdad, San Bernardino, Colorado Springs, Mali… the list seems endless, some from our American free access to guns, some from acts of terrorism committed by Muslims. Some are both. We’ve heard Donald Trump scream about barring Muslims from the …

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Army and Navy technicians prepare unexploded ordnance for demolition in 2003 near Baghdad.

History, Politics, and Those Pesky WMDs

by Doug Howard. Although my Google Chrome home page is set to international.nytimes.com, I get my best news from Facebook. The New York Times is great, but it is so conventional, and the articles are so long! I just want to know what happened overnight, or what someone was thinking while I was asleep. For …

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Laugh or Cry?

by Doug Howard. Just so you know, Aamer Rahman apologized for Islam last Friday night. Also—in advance—for daring to tell jokes about terrorism. You can’t be too careful these days. In his show at the Calvin College CFAC, the Australian comedian, who is of Bangladeshi Muslim descent, gingerly felt his way around and through American …

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