After the death of Pope Francis, what happens? How is a new pope chosen? We have a great book for that!

April 21, 2025 by Leave a Comment

Want to know more about what’s happening at the Vatican now?

Click on the cover to visit the book’s Amazon page, where this fascinating history is available in paperback, hardcover—and in a very affordable Kindle edition that is easy to search for any subject that interests you as a reader.

One of the best new books about Americans’ interest in the Vatican is the epic history of The National Catholic Reporter—Beacon of Justice, Community, and Hope.

Here’s a summary of what’s inside this fascinating look at the church’s impact around the world and across the U.S.:

Discover the 60-year history of the National Catholic Reporter Publishing Company, sustaining NCR’s commitment to covering the nation, the world, the Catholic Church, and the Catholic faith. From the Second Vatican Council through the era of Pope Francis, this nonprofit has served as the leading independent Catholic news source reporting on the church’s involvement in war and peace, ecojustice, and cultural issues worldwide.

Lawrence Guillot’s history also is the story of one in five Americans who identify as Catholic, more than 50 million people whose lives have been shaped by the world’s largest Christian denomination. Starting with reporting on the dramatic changes ushered in by Vatican II that affected every Catholic parish in the world, this book tells the story of courageous journalists who banded together to report on those often-turbulent waves of modernization. The story focuses on the huge challenges, some nearly fatal to the publishing company, that they had to overcome to keep the presses rolling and, today, to keep the NCR’s extensive online and multimedia offerings rolling onto the internet.

And, in telling that story, this book offers a history of the Catholic Church as it passed through one of the most vibrant and consequential periods in its history and continues to serve its nearly 1.4-billion baptized members today.

Care to jump right to sections on papal transitions?

When you get your copy of this book, turn to:

Chapter 14. The Year of Three Popes: The John Paul II Era Begins 

Chapter 61. The New Pope: Cardinal Ratzinger Becomes Benedict XVI

Chapter 77: Enter Francis, Global Parish Priest—A Ministry of Mercy

What’s so fascinating about this book is that it recalls how many American Catholic families experienced and reflected on these major transitions in the church’s global leadership.

Media Expert Quentin Schultze draws 20 life lessons for the New Year from a movie that millions will watch (again) this week

December 23, 2024 by

“There’s a kind of timeless nostalgia that draws us into the movie, but Jean’s story is really about how difficult it is for us to find our way forward in this bewildering world, especially for children who find themselves in the middle of all of these problems.”
Media expert Quentin Schultze writing about A Christmas Story author Jean Shepherd

By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit magazine

Click the cover to visit the book’s Amazon page.

The moment I first saw this book, I was astonished that veteran media expert Quentin Schultze managed to write an entire inspirational book about a single movie, the 1983 classic, A Christmas Story. He’s produced 208 pages of wise and wonderful material, based on a movie that’s only 94 minutes long.

The godfather of this publishing genre, Robert Short, established this concept back in 1965 with The Gospel According to Peanuts. But, Bob Short had a big advantage in writing his book. He was able to drawn on the vast world of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts to distill his handful of spiritual and moral lessons for readers. In the case of Schultze’s new book—You’ll Shoot Your Eyes Out! Life Lessons from the Movie A Christmas Story—Schultze draws 20 lessons from a single film!

As we approach the 60th anniversary of this popular Faith & Film genre in book publishing, Quentin Schultze has pulled off a tour de force demonstrating how powerful this type of book-length reflection on film can be. If you love movies—and you enjoy regular spiritual reflections—you should order a copy of this book.

It’s an instant classic!

That was not the case with this “Hollywood Christmas comedy” that was based on a pre-World War II story by author, humorist and media personality Jean Shepherd (1921-1999). The first big problem the movie faced was a lack of confidence among MGM executives, who dumped A Christmas Story into theaters for a short run before Thanksgiving that year. Film Critic Gene Siskel immediately realized that MGM honchos had no idea of the movie’s true value. Siskel wrote: “A Christmas Story is a delightful motion picture that is doomed to box office failure. It would appear to be a children’s film, but it really is a whimsical piece for adults about childhood.” And, because it is a movie about remembering experiences associated with Christmas, it was simply out of synch for moviegoers in November. “Whoever booked this film this early should be shot,” Siskel concluded.

Siskel was right. A Christmas Story came, went and was forgotten—well, almost forgotten.

Flash forward four decades to 2024 and now we recognize A Christmas Story as arguably The No. 1 Christmas Movie of all time. Signs of that status are the annual “movie marathon” traditions on both the TNT and TBS networks. On TBS in 2024, that 24-hour, back-to-back series of re-broadcasts starts at 8 p.m. on Christmas Eve. On TNT, that day-and-night marathon begins at 9 p.m. Christmas Eve. And if you’re a true fan of this film—only on TNT, the marathon ends at 9 p.m. Christmas Day with a one-time showing of the 2022 sequel, A Christmas Story Christmas.

Recognizing a Phenomenal Storyteller in Our Midst

This remarkable transformation of an almost-forgotten “sleeper” into America’s defining movie about Christmas doesn’t surprise Quentin Schultze—partly because he knew and worked with Jean Shepherd and was one of the first media experts to recognize the shining facets within this gem that Shepherd crafted for us.

“In the 1970s, I was a new communication professor,” Schultze told me in an interview about his new book. “I was teaching but I was also continuing to learn myself about the nature of narrative storytelling—which I believe is the most potent form of human expression. I began looking around for people who were particularly good storytellers, especially in multiple forms of media. That’s why I started to follow the work of Jean Shepherd, who I could tell was a phenomenal storyteller in multiple media. I saw one of Jean’s first made-for-TV movies, Phantom of the Open Hearth, in 1976 and I was so impressed by his use of parallel plots, multiple stories tied together into one narrative. I knew this was someone I needed to watch and to work with, if I could make that happen someday.

“Then, in 1982, I moved from where I had been teaching in Iowa to join the faculty at Calvin in Michigan—and, with that move to Calvin, I decided to contact Jean. By the time we talked, even more of his work was appearing and I was determined to find a way to connect with him. I remember that very first time we talked, I said, ‘I’m a communication professor at a small college in Michigan and I am hoping to work with you on a course about your storytelling.’

“To my surprise, he responded: ‘Let’s do it.’ And that’s how he came to Calvin and co-taught a course with me. We spent time with the students picking apart his stories—exploring how he organized them, how he took us with him to various places, and how he would bring this all together as he concluded his stories.

“So, that already was unfolding when I first saw A Christmas Story in 1983. Because I knew so much about Jean’s storytelling, I could see his influence throughout the movie, which I thought was extremely well done. … I could see immediately that this movie was his home run. When I began to realize that it was bombing at the box office, I was stunned. How could this be? Maybe people just weren’t ready to understand what Jean was doing in this particular story.”

Schultze was determined to encourage for his new friend—and he was not alone. Film critics like Gene Siskel recognized and praised the little movie that all-too-quickly vanished. Through Calvin, Schultze and Shepherd continued to collaborate on conversations and courses over the years. Eventually, Schultze himself began writing books, nonfiction about faith and communication. But it took more than 40 years from their first phone contact for Schultze to dedicate this new book to his friend and the pinnacle of Shepherd’s career, A Christmas Story.

If this condensed version of the story is intriguing to you—about how a sleeper became a classic and how these two creative professionals formed a collaborative friendship—well, order a copy of Quentin’s book. If you’re a true Christmas Story fan, you also will learn in this book about some elements in that 1983 movie that Jean Shepherd did not like, once he saw how his script was reinterpreted by MGM. In other words, if you’re among the countless Americans who have collected Christmas Story memorabilia and watch the marathons each year, you’ll welcome the insider tidbits Quentin Schultze provides.

So, what about these 20 lessons?

The key to unlocking Schultze’s revelations about A Christmas Story is his central argument that the movie was primarily not intended to be “nostalgic,” which may come as a shock to many fans.

If you’re disagreeing with that argument, stop and think about this for a moment: Millions of Americans love the nostalgic feel of the movie even though very few of those viewers actually grew up in the 1930s. There is something about this movie—in fact, 20 “somethings,” Schultze argues—that seem to connect with our lives in bittersweet ways, sometimes funny and sometimes painfully thought-provoking.

Schultze said in our interview. “I remember Jean himself saying this to me: ‘The movie is really anti-nostalgic.’ The story is about looking back and saying: Things were always rotten, just like they’re rotten now. There were always problems.

“Sure, there’s a kind of timeless nostalgia that draws us into the movie, but Jean’s story is really about how difficult it is for us to find our way forward in this bewildering world, especially for children who find themselves in the middle of all of these problems. It is a hopeful film, because Jean survived a rotten childhood—and he knew that it was possible to survive such problems. That’s why Jean wanted to give us all these life lessons—these parables—along the way.”

Perhaps right there you recognize the depth of the connection between Schultze and Shepherd, especially if you are reading this article as one of Schultze’s thousands of students over the years. If so, you already know that Schultze’s own life started as “really rotten”—full of problems just like Jean Shepherd’s early life. Schultze makes no secret of this. In fact, it’s an essential part of his hopeful, pragmatic message to the world: Despite trauma, we can resiliently thrive and become part of healthy families and communities. On the front page of his website, Schultze tells visitors from the start: “I grew up in a kind of living hell.”

“I do think that’s one reason we connected all those years ago,” Schultze said. “Jean’s own father abandoned his family—and I learned a lot more about our connections as we taught together over the years. In the movie, this realization explains a lot about the distance between the kids and ‘The Old Man.’ ”

Childhood trauma is just one example of the themes Schultze explores in his book. One of the 20 “life lessons” Schultze describes in this book involves the kinds of “refuges” that kids learn to cherish. There’s a lot in the course of this book that is more light hearted, but that chapter on childhood refuges is serious stuff and I think it’s a good example of the kind of insight that readers will really appreciate.

I won’t spoil the experience of Schultze’s book by listing all the other life lessons, but I do hope I’ve made the case in this Cover Story sufficiently that you think about ordering your own copy to enjoy.

Back in the 1980s, when Schultze was first getting to know Shepherd—as a journalist I was getting to know Robert Short, the spiritual godfather of this spiritual-lessons-in-pop-culture genre. I interviewed Short multiple times over the years that I was serving as a religion editor for major newspapers. After all, it was quite an achievement to be “the first” in a new literary genre—and Short went on to sell more than 10 million copies of that original book. He remained a wise patriarch of the genre until he passed in 2009.

I know Schultze will be happy if he sells a few thousand copies of his book this winter. Over the decades, I’ve interviewed authors of all kinds of faith-and-pop-culture books from volumes on Superman to the Simpsons, from U2 to Disney. And I really do want to encourage this inspirational impulse.

Plus, I want to honor Schultze’s achievement with this new book. What Schultze accomplished here, along with some wise insights from his own friendship with Shepherd—is to unlock the connection between this particular movie and the wistful imaginations of a lot of Americans these days.

I also suspect that, like the movie itself, the audience for Schultze’s book may grow over the years as each year’s new wave of those movie marathons roll around.

So, we say: Happy New Year Quentin! May your book find a growing audience through 2025 and beyond.

How our Jewish friend showed my wife and I the perfect gift to avert a Christmas tragedy

December 16, 2024 by

By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit magazine

This is the story of an interfaith holiday miracle.

And, yes, I know! I know! Declaring something to be an “interfaith miracle” places me on thin ice this winter. I know that we need to avoid trying to mash the customs of our faiths together in a way that distorts the treasures we have inherited in our unique branches of religious heritage. For half a century as a journalist covering religious diversity, I have written annual stories explaining that Hanukkah is not “the Jewish Christmas.”

So, with that caveat, on with the story.

This year, I am astonished by the creative generosity of a dear Jewish friend—Rusty Rosman, the author of Two Envelopes—whose wisdom about the aging process has moved her to “adopt” my wife and I. Rusty has even met our family’s matriarch, the cofounder of a historic family dairy farm in mid Michigan. Each week when I talk with Rusty about her ongoing work as an author, Rusty takes a moment to ask me about our “Mom” and Mom’s ongoing challenges as a frail, 97-year-old, fiercely independent woman trying to continue living (alone now) in the original farm house.

These days, when “Mom” looks out her windows across the vast farm that’s still a part of our family, she often sees the next two generations of farmers laboring out there—driving tractors, perhaps, or seeing to the cattle. She loves living at the heart of her farm—and she can’t abide the idea of moving into a more comfortable assisted living center. However, the challenges of keeping her living like that are enormous, something that all of us in her extended family and circle of friends work to enable for her.

That brings us to Christmas, the biggest holiday of the year in our family, complete with the annual “homecoming” to the farm. Yup, you can summon images from your favorite Hallmark holiday movie and that’s what we all work to engineer each year.

A decade ago, my wife and I became Mom’s official “Santa’s elves,” working with her to think of a single universal gift that she can buy and that we can help her to wrap for each of the dozen or so folks (individuals or couples) on her Christmas list. In past years, we’ve come up with universal ideas like a gift box we curated of “Michigan products,” or a portable car re-charging device that was a big hit with the recipients, or (during COVID) a countertop sanitizing appliance. This year, my wife and I had a great idea of having a professional-quality photo of Mom as the family matriarch taken outdoors with the farm’s signature corn crop. We would have this iconic photo printed, matted and framed in a beautiful way to adorn the walls of each of the dozen recipients. Then, we hit a huge snag. This idea of a portrait of her—alone as the matriarch—awakened memories of Dad, the original farmer and now of blessed memory. For weeks, anxieties over this idea stalled the production until we blew the deadline to have such professional work finished in time.

Mom wept when we told her about the missed deadline.

“Well, there’s still time for you could get gift cards in holiday envelopes, this year,” we said. “But we don’t have another universal gift idea for something in a wrapped box that we could pull off by Christmas. Over the past decade, we’ve used up pretty much every great gift-in-a-box idea. We’re out of ideas. And out of time.”

For days, there was weeping across the telephone line in our daily phone calls.

Mom tried to explain why this was such a tragedy for her. “Wrapped packages under my tree for each one of my loved ones as they come home to the farm—that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done. I’m 97

and this will be the first Christmas that I haven’t had wrapped gifts under the tree for everyone.”

“Well, by next year—” we began.

“Next year?!” she said in deep sigh that reminded us: She’s well aware of the treasure of each new day that she’s alive. She doesn’t think in terms of “next year.” That’s sad to say, but we all know it’s true.

Then a miracle happened.

OK! OK, I know, that’s a “line” I’m stealing from the Hanukkah story. When the Maccabees reclaimed the temple in Jerusalem, they found one little pot of oil that wouldn’t last to keep the temple light burning properly—but: “Then a miracle happened.” That oil burned for eight days. I hope that our Jewish readers will forgive me for co-opting that line.

Rusty embodied that miracle. This year, she decided to give a Christmas gift to my wife and I to celebrate our more-than-a-year of close friendship. She ordered a box from Amazon to be delivered—but made a mistake and had it shipped to her own home! So, Rusty packed that box into her car and drove half an hour to personally deliver that box to our door. Inside was a gift set of various varieties of popcorn from Amish Country Popcorn.

This all took place on the very day that a handful of our desperate family members got together in a conference call to discuss how to help lift Mom’s spirits—now that her “elves” had hit a brick wall. Her vision of a perfect Christmas on the farm was falling apart. There would be no wrapped presents under her tree. A handful of holiday envelopes, filled with gift cards, just didn’t fit her Norman Rockwell vision for Christmas Day.

As we brainstormed, our own adult “kids” had a few good ideas. One was a special Christmas ornament with a photograph of the family farm custom-printed on it—but, alas, there was no time to arrange that by December 25. Another was a wonderful gift to share with all of the family’s dogs (we all love dogs)—but, alas, we remembered that one person’s dog had just died and such a gift would be a heartbreaker for all of us on Christmas. On and on we went. Nothing seemed to click.

A universal gift for a dozen recipients is tough to find!

As we were talking, Amy and I were in the process of munching on a bowl of popcorn we had made from Rusty’s gift set. I lifted a handful of buttery kernels—and the light bulb finally flashed! We could follow Rusty’s example and get a dozen Amish Country Popcorn gift sets to wrap for Mom to arrange around her tree. Once wrapped in colorful paper with bows, these boxed gift sets truly would dress up her tree in a fashion worthy of Rockwell nostalgia.

We checked via Amazon and there was plenty of time to have them delivered, wrap them and tuck them under the farmhouse tree.

“This is a brilliant idea—in so many ways!” I said.

“Oh, yeah! One reason: It’s corn—what a perfect farming theme!” my daughter said.

“And it’s gluten free,” my wife said, thinking of one niece who can only eat gluten-free foods. “Everyone can enjoy this.”

“So, it certainly checks the ‘universal’ box,” I said. “And remember? Dad, when he was alive, loved popcorn—so we can truly say this gift is a reminder of our beloved patriarch, too,” I said.

“You know, because Dad loved popcorn and we always had that as a snack—that’s the first word I learned to spell as a pre-schooler—P-O-P-C-O-R-N. Yeah, Dad loved it,” my wife said.

So, as I publish this story, a dozen gift sets of Amish Country Popcorn are wending their way to the “elves” wrapping table and eventually to a display of colorful gifts arranged around the farmhouse tree—in the same corner of the same room where gifts have been piled each Christmas Day for more than 70 years.

And that Christmas miracle was all thanks to my Jewish friend and her tireless insistence on getting that box to our front door on the same day our family Christmas conference took place.

This truly is a gift that truly keeps on giving.

Because, now, I have just given to you, dear reader, the gift of this story.

And you can give this gift—or a generous idea like it—away this year to someone you love.

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Care to learn more?

EDITOR’s AFTERWORD: If you’re a true Norman Rockwell aficionado, then you know that Rockwell preferred to paint illustrations of frustrated families preparing for Christmas. In one of his most famous Yuletide illustrations, he painted a Dad hopelessly tangled up in Christmas lights; in another, he showed a Mom and Dad trying to finish decorating the top of spindly tree using a ladder as a racing pair of family dogs comes perilously close to crashing everything to the floor. You get the idea. While we may think of Rockwell’s images as celebrating ideals, more often he pointed out our frustrations and foibles—like our family’s situation this year.

So, in the end, this story is a Rockwell Christmas tale.

Then, if you want to learn more about Rusty, get a copy of her book Two Envelopes: What You Want Your Loved Ones to Know When You Die.

You also can visit Rusty Rosman’s website to learn about her ongoing schedule as she continues to help groups of men and women across the country engage with these issues we all will encounter someday. And we can assure you: We know from our experiences over the past year that, if you “book” her to visit your group, Rusty will be a delightful visitor who you’ll never forget.

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‘Sanctuary’ is Coming Out this week. Encourage these new friends by ordering their memoir.

October 7, 2024 by

Thousands of congregations are moving toward inclusion.
Here’s the inspiring story of how one church met that challenge.

OUR PUBLISHING HOUSE team is pleased to see word spreading nationwide about the inspiring value of this memoir from the folks in Iowa who have worked to build a happy, growing—and inclusive—congregation, even when that goal seemed almost impossible.

The book’s official national launch date was scheduled for this week to coincide with National Coming Out Day, an annual tradition started in 1988 to encourage open conversations about inclusion in communities nationwide.

First, enjoy this 2-minute overview of ‘Sanctuary’

Second, share the good news

No kidding! This is good news worthy of sharing widely across your social media. Sanctuary tells a true story that will encourage many more congregations nationwide to continue the process of welcoming LGBTQ+ neighbors. In August 2024, when the book first appeared in online bookstores for “pre-orders” we published an in-depth look at the authors and their congregation, headlined:

‘Sanctuary’ debuts with a timely success story of a church in the American heartland where people dare to be inclusive

Then, don’t just take our word for it—read this review by journalist Bill Tammeus

Veteran journalist and author Bill Tammeus writes about how timely this new book is the thousands of congregations who are wrestling with this long-overdue change in church culture.

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And finally, get your own copy—and one for a friend.

Click the cover to visit the book’s Amazon page. (The book also is available from Barnes & Noble, Walmart and wherever quality books are sold these days.)

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Dr. David Gushee and Jonathan Grimm discuss via video: When do our faith and conscience compel us to speak out?

September 23, 2024 by

We are streaming this timely Gushee-Grimm video below

Why is this Timely? Because bestselling Christian ethicist Dr. David Gushee is writing about the timeless values of Jesus that call into question a lot of the political claims being made in the 2024 election year. Dr. Gushee began addressing these issues in his late-2023 book, Defending Democracy from its Christian Enemies. Now, he is following up on that book with an overview of what Dr. Gushee describes as Jesus’s “radical” teachings about our moral priorities.

Why is he talking with Jonathan Grimm? Because Jonathan Grimm—as you will learn in the video below—is a former student who credits Dr. Gushee with helping to form his moral conscience many years ago. Now, Grimm is a leading financial expert whose upcoming book, The Future Poor, raises many of the same questions about the fairness of our economic and social systems that are described in Dr. Gushee’s book.

What will I learn if I watch this video? First, you will  hear these two remarkable authors talk about how far Jesus’s original moral message has been distorted in our current era.

In Grimm’s own work nationally—trying to help Americans prepare for their retirement years by helping to form compassionate communities—he has found this same confusion about Jesus’s original teachings that Dr. Gushee identifies in his new book.

In the video, below, Grimm says at one point, “I feel like many Christians have very little familiarity with the actual teachings of Jesus about the moral life.”

Then, as the two discuss these issues, you will find useful—and very “quotable”—insights.

For example, at one point, Jonathan argues that one reason millions of self-identified “Christians” seem to be ignoring some of Jesus’s core teachings.

Dr. Gushee agrees and says that’s because: “We don’t want Jesus to set the agenda for our lives. … He is radical. My book’s subtitle is Radical Instruction in the Will of God—and Jesus is very radical and very challenging—which is the reason that we’d rather focus on the story that Jesus came as a baby and he died on the cross for our sins and he rose from the dead so we can go to heaven when we die.”

Dr. Gushee continues: “Jesus came preaching a Kingdom that has never been fulfilled in human life and cannot be reduced to anybody’s political or ideological agenda, left or right.”

In other words, the video below is something that you’ll likely want to share with friends (just use the social-media sharing buttons with this column) and that you may want to “quote from” in coming weeks.

Here’s one more example of a key exchange:

In Grimm’s research on the looming American retirement crisis, which forms the core of his upcoming book The Future Poor, he found that one reason so many American families are likely to wind up below the poverty level in the future is that our priorities have become so aggressively competitive, focused on individual success.

Dr. Gushee agrees. In the middle of this video, he says:

Ours is a culture that’s about branding oneself—making a name, building a following—all the things one must do to be competitive in the marketplace. But Jesus was remarkably uninterested in any status games whatsoever—and that challenges everybody. We like wealth and ostentatious displays of wealth all across our culture—and Jesus warns against wealth in a way that should make either liberal or conservative wealthy enclaves uncomfortable.

So, please, sit down for a bit with your favorite beverage and listen to these two prophetic authors explore the moral values that Jesus taught as an alternative to the troubled world in which we find ourselves in 2024 …

Care to learn more?

If you have read this far, then you’ll definitely be interested in two of Dr. Gushee’s classics:

Plus, you’ll want to sign up for Jonathan Grimm’s free, newsy updates, which he describes in this week’s Front Edge Publishing column, headlined: Care about your financial future and that of your loved ones?

The Rev. Dr. Ryan Burge, an expert in ‘The Great Dechurching’ of America, closes down his own church

September 8, 2024 by

By JOE GRIMM
Director of the Bias Busters project at MSU School of Journalism

As Ryan Burge tells his story: It wasn’t supposed to go this way!

Want to learn more about those folks who are leaving churches? Click on this cover to visit the book’s Amazon page.

Burge is a nationally recognized expert on why people are leaving church—and he also was supposed to be an expert on what churches could do to bring people back into the fold. That’s the pitch for his new Zondervan book, The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back

However, that cultural, social and religious tidal wave was just too powerful for Burge and his small circle of members to save their aging, shrinking congregation knocking around in a big old building that once housed a thriving community.

When Burge announced publicly that he was helping to close down his own church—the news of their dilemma went viral.

In a version of his story that was published by the Utah-based Deseret News—Burge admitted:

I researched the decline of organized religion while having a front-row view of the change in my own life. What’s happened at my own church is especially poignant since in my day job I research trends in American religion. And when I first became a pastor, right out of college, there were ominous signs, but I did not foresee how quickly the end would come, hastened by a pandemic.

Who is Ryan Burge?

One of his online bios explains: “Ryan Burge is an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, where also serves as the graduate coordinator. He has authored over 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters alongside four books about religion and politics in the United States. He written for the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. 60 Minutes has called him, “one of the country’s leading data analysts on religion and politics.”

And here’s another twist in this tale:

There is a lot of good news in this story, despite its ironic conclusion.

On balance, the many years that Burge and these families devoted to their First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Illinois, were a powerful, inspirational force in their lives that continues to shape the world.

Bob Smietana, a reporter for Religion News Service, attended Burge’s last sermon and wrote a column titled In Small-Town Illinois, a Little Church Says Goodbye. Smietana reported that the congregation’s embrace of a Brown Bag Program in 2008 had renewed Burge’s faith. Over 15 years, the church’s small number of elderly members packed nearly 55,000 lunches.

Over the years, Burge worked hard at shoring up the congregation. At one point, Burge tried to find a buyer for the church. In 2017, the church was transferred to a Christian school as a last-ditch move to preserve the building’s Christ-centered mission. The deal meant the congregation could continue worshiping there on weekends, but it was no longer their building.

However—transferring the church to the school was never more than a short-term fix. Burge wrote, “every six or eight months, we would lose a key member, then another, then another. That two dozen became 15, then 12, then 10.”

On July 21, 2024, Burge wrote, “I stood behind the pulpit of First Baptist Church for the last time.” He walked out the doors, uncertain what the future holds for him and pessimistic about the future for organized religion.

Pessimistic about religious change?

Well, one place to start lifting your spirits in a practical way is with the Michigan State University School of Journalism Bias Busters book series.

For more than a decade, the guiding force behind this project has been helping Americans understand each other—especially those “others” who somehow seem different than “us.” We do this in our MSU team by “answering questions everybody’s asking but nobody’s answering.” We want our readers not to fear their neighbors.

That includes those millions of “religiously unaffiliated” Americans living all around us—in our families, our places of work, schools and communities.

Burge’s news story “went viral” because of its ironic hook—a nationally known expert seeming to fail in his own area of expertise—but that’s not a complete summary of this story, as Bob Smietana indicated in his reporting. Burge and his friends in Illinois found themselves caught up in a historic tidal wave—which should prompt our curiosity about how those same waters are moving through our communities.

That’s really the message summed up in the little quote from a church member that closes Bob Smietana’s story: “We are not done with each other.”

And, frankly, that’s also a pretty good tagline for our MSU Bias Busters series.

Instead of walking away from our neighbors in fear, anger and exhaustion—our students who produce these books keep rolling up their sleeves each year, ready to explore yet another corner of our communities.

Why do they do this?

Because, in our vision of America: We’re not done with each other.

 

Where can we find St. Nicholas this December? Try the Virginia Theological Seminary

November 20, 2023 by

World’s Largest St. Nicholas Database Is Moving

Virginia Theological Seminary’s exhibit is ready for the December 6 Feast of St. Nicholas …

… followed by a December 17 dedication

By DAVID CRUMM
Editor of ReadTheSpirit Magazine

Because our Front Edge Publishing is based in Michigan, we have enjoyed a bit of home-state pride in Carol Myers’ creation of the world’s largest St. Nicholas database, operating out of her home in Holland, Michigan. So, each year, it’s a ReadTheSpirit tradition to publish a story—well before St. Nicholas Day on December 6—reminding readers to visit the online resources Carol has compiled at the St. Nicholas Center website. Her Center is packed with fun for history buffs, church leaders, teachers, parents—and anyone who wants to learn more about the global impact of the saint behind our pop-culture Santa Claus.

Her Center even shares tasty recipes—and we know that our readers love a good recipe!

This year, we are joining with the Myers—both Carol and also her husband, the best-selling author of psychology textbooks David Myers—as they are celebrating their historic effort to move all of these St. Nicholas resources to a permanent, endowed home at the Virginia Theological Seminary.

St. Nicholas: ‘A Subversive Saint … of Justice’

This is a project as big as the database itself and it contains many moving parts that have been unfolding over the years.

And, first, to reassure our readers who know Carol personally and have interacted with her over the decades: Don’t worry! Carol isn’t leaving her role at the helm of the website immediately. She and the Virginia Theological Seminary team are planning a multi-year transition.

This week, Carol explained some of those moving parts for us. In a Q&A interview about this momentous move, she said:

The partnership with VTS has three parts: 1) the website, 2) the “Who Is St. Nicholas?” Exhibit, and 3) the St. Nicholas Faith & Justice Center.

The Faith & Justice Center is still in the formative stage. The director will be the soon-to-be-appointed Professor of Ethics. St. Nicholas, I always say, is a subversive saint. Folks think he’s about sentimental gift-giving. He’s actually about justice—particularly for the vulnerable and oppressed. His stories and legends relate to contemporary justice issues: human trafficking, hunger, mass incarceration, death penalty, inequality. The center will help form students and others for advocacy, familiarize students with Episcopal Church resources (such as Episcopal Relief & Development, the Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, Episcopal Public Policy Network) and beyond (such as Bread for the World), and take advantage of the seminary’s proximity to our nation’s capital.

The website has grown beyond anything I could have imagined back when it launched in 2002. Each year, I get correspondence from many of the million-plus visitors to our website. People ask all kinds of questions! St. Nicholas experts in Europe tell me my site is where they send people to learn about St. Nicholas. So many artists, writers, photographers, and others have shared their material, making the site as rich as it is.

I would have run out of new ideas years ago. I’ve worked hard to provide appropriate material for people across the Christian spectrum; the site serves Catholics, both Roman and Eastern Rite, Orthodox, Anglicans and other Main-line Protestants, and more conservative Evangelicals, too. It’s been an amazing and rewarding journey.

Finding a ‘middle way’ to bring our world’s people together

I asked Carol why she and David chose Virginia Theological Seminary for this generous, endowed gift and she replied that this was a relationship that had grown over time—and seemed especially fitting because the seminary already has an extensive digital outreach.

Carol said:

Virginia Theological Seminary does, I believe, more with digital formation of this kind than anyone else, anywhere.

We chose VTS also because the Episcopal Church offers a “middle way” that is accessible to Christians across a broad spectrum. That’s important to me as the site’s visitors come from across the whole Christian spectrum. Plus, I’m also an Episcopalian so it is a place that’s “home” to me, too. Most importantly, their warm embrace of this idea was an enormous joy and relief.

I also know these resources are in stable hands. VTS, unlike so many seminaries today, is secure financially, focused on the future, not on survival. It has just completed celebrating its bicentenary with a completely renovated campus, positioned to lead in the future.

The way the Dean and President Ian Markham has embraced St. Nicholas for the seminary is beyond anything I could have ever hoped or dreamed. My St. Nicholas has found a home there that goes way beyond just the website itself. I can’t say enough how significant and wonderful this is.

The exhibit answers the question: ‘Who is St. Nicholas?’

Carol described the exhibit this way:

Our St. Nicholas Exhibit opened at St. James Cathedral, Chicago, in 2008. The museum-quality exhibit was meant to be traveling, though due to size and expense it didn’t travel very much. VTS hosted the traveling exhibit in 2019 to kick-off our partnership for the website. When the exhibit was there, they fell in love with it and decided to find a way to have it permanently installed at the seminary. It is now in the completely renovated Welcome Center.

Dean Ian Markham said, “Unlike a generic Welcome Center found at other graduate schools, this one seeks to reflect the distinctive values of VTS. As one admires the extraordinary exhibits, the guest learns that this is a place focused on the Incarnation. Both exhibits are linked with Christmas. We are a Christmas people trusting that God is made manifest in the babe from Bethlehem.” The Welcome Center also has a creche gallery.

The exhibit, “Who Is St. Nicholas?” tells the St. Nicholas story with text and artifacts from all over the world. It shows him as a saint, introduces his stories and legends, shows how he’s celebrated around the world through faith traditions and folk customs.

It also illustrates Santa’s development. There are hands-on activities for all ages—rubbings, miter-folding and St. Nicholas symbol puzzle pieces for younger visitors. An interactive panel identifies the 32 stories depicted in a large story icon painting. The exhibit is fun, festive and educational for all ages.

Here’s another webpage where your readers can see a few more of the items in the exhibit.

Why did the Myers decide St. Nicholas should make this major move?

Carol said:

When we reach a certain age it’s necessary to make plans for the future. I really wanted the resources that make up St. Nicholas Center to continue to be available for families, churches, and schools.

I’m 80 now and it was important to try to find a home for the site that would give it an ongoing, secure future. The site launched in 2002 and I figured I’d do it through my 60s, not sure I’d want to continue in my 70s. Well, as I was approaching the end of my 70s I knew it wouldn’t be wise to assume that I’d want or be able to keep on in my 80s. That said, I’m not yet ready to give up the site—there’s still so much to do! Recipes to make and photograph, crafts to add, churches to find, code to clean up before handing it over, and more.

December 17 VTS Dedication in Alexandria, Virginia

Finally, Carol explained:

Sunday, December 17, 2023, is the dedication and blessing date—and, yes, David and I will be there along with a number of folks that have been instrumental, helpful, and supportive over the years.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is giving a lecture on The Way of Love, the Bishop of Virginia, Mark Stevenson, will do the dedication and blessing in the Welcome Center, followed by a service of Lessons and Carols in Immanuel Chapel.