John Fea
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John Fea
@johnfea1.bsky.social
Historian at Messiah University and Lumen Center (Madison, WI). Author of 6 books. Blogger and podcaster at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. #LGM #Bruuuuuce!
“The truest understanding of slavery doesn’t serve any political faction.”

Here is Thomas Chatterton Williams at The Atlantic: Matt Walsh would like you to know you’ve been lied to.Last month, the right-wing provocateur appeared on Megyn Kelly’s show to discuss his new video series, Real History…
“The truest understanding of slavery doesn’t serve any political faction.”
Here is Thomas Chatterton Williams at The Atlantic: Matt Walsh would like you to know you’ve been lied to.Last month, the right-wing provocateur appeared on Megyn Kelly’s show to discuss his new video series, Real History With Matt Walsh. “When you really start getting into it,” Walsh told Kelly, “you realize that, wow, they really lied about everything.” He begins the series by examining the practice of chattel slavery, he said to Kelly, “because this is, we’re told, the original sin” of the United States. In Walsh’s account, the left believes that “America was built on slavery, and it has no right to exist, and every white American carries, somehow, that legacy, that guilt in their blood”; therefore progressives feel they have the “moral justification to just do whatever they want” to white people.
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 13, 2026 at 2:49 PM
Most popular posts of the last week

The Way of Improvement Leads Home highlighted several popular posts last week, including Trump's controversial image of the Obamas, responses to his anniversary message on the Mexican-American War, and various evangelical roundups. Additional topics included Don…
Most popular posts of the last week
The Way of Improvement Leads Home highlighted several popular posts last week, including Trump's controversial image of the Obamas, responses to his anniversary message on the Mexican-American War, and various evangelical roundups. Additional topics included Don Lemon's arrest and discussions surrounding evangelicals' beliefs and critiques on mocking as a form of discourse.
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 13, 2026 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by John Fea
"The Department of Education recognized PCC as a Hispanic-serving institution in 2023, providing it with $3 million...But last year the Trump administration deemed such programs unconstitutional..." thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/12/p...
Providence Christian College will close
I visited The Way of Improvement Leads Home archives to see whether we have posted anything about Providence Christian College, a Reformed liberal arts school in Southern California. I found this a…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 12, 2026 at 3:22 PM
Reposted by John Fea
In today's roundup (Feb 12, 2026), we have: Sandi Patti vs. Trump, division on Trump's "Religious Liberty Commission, still more Bad Bunny commentary, "anti-white racism," New York's assisted suicide bill, and much more: thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/12/e...
Evangelical roundup for February 12, 2026
What is happening today at the intersection of Evangelicals and politics? Christianity Today breaks down New York’s new assisted suicide bill with Dr. Lydia Dugdale of Columbia University&#82…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 12, 2026 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by John Fea
As Jake & Rhonda Jacobsen argue in *Christianity and Intellectual Inquiry*, "fortress thinking" takes place on both the left & the right. The Jacobsens offer a better way. They call it "pilgrimage thinking." Episode 133 is here! thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/e... @oxfordunipress.bsky.social
Episode 133: “Thinking as Pilgrimage
What is the difference between “fortress thinking” and “pilgrimage thinking”? How do these modes of thinking shape the academy today? In this episode, Rhonda and Douglas Jac…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 12, 2026 at 1:44 AM
Reposted by John Fea
In today's roundup (Feb. 11, 2026), we have: More responses to Bad Bunny and the racist Trump Truth Social post about the Obamas, defenses of Trump's Religious Liberty Commission, Trump as a "prophetic disrupter," and more:
thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/11/e...
Evangelical roundup for February 11, 2026
What is happening today at the intersection of Evangelicalism and politics? Megachurch pastor and court evangelical Jentezen Franklin is the latest conservative evangelical to denounce Donald Trump…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 11, 2026 at 2:29 PM
Reposted by John Fea
"When 51 percent of Republicans still believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, solely because he has said so thousands of times, the republic is in peril." thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/11/c...
Can democracy survive a “permanently, systematically deluded” electorate?
Over at Commonweal, one of my favorite culture critics, George Scialabba, reflects on the state of American democracy under Trump. He writes, “Democracy can survive an ignorant and inflamed e…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 11, 2026 at 2:55 PM
"When 51 percent of Republicans still believe that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, solely because he has said so thousands of times, the republic is in peril." thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/11/c...
Can democracy survive a “permanently, systematically deluded” electorate?
Over at Commonweal, one of my favorite culture critics, George Scialabba, reflects on the state of American democracy under Trump. He writes, “Democracy can survive an ignorant and inflamed e…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 11, 2026 at 2:52 PM
Reposted by John Fea
Most scholars hope that their views will trickle down and influence public opinion. It looks like some scholars of evangelicals may be getting their wish in the form of Jennifer Welch. thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/o...
On evangelicals and their beliefs as ‘white trash, magical thinking, dumb people bullshit.’
I wrote about Jennifer Welch’s claims about evangelicalism last month, but I thought I would revisit this topic after reading Christianity Today’s Bonnie Kristian at The Free Press. Her…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 7:07 PM
Reposted by John Fea
"Americans today consider Lincoln to be the nation’s finest commander in chief, a self-taught military genius whose ideas were more modern and much wiser than those of his own generals. I argue that this “heroic legend” is in fact a literary construction..." thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/t...
The Author’s Corner with Kenneth W. Noe
Kenneth W. Noe is Draughon Professor of Southern History Emeritus at Auburn University. This interview is based on his new book, Abraham Lincoln and the Heroic Legend: Reconsidering Lincoln as Comm…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by John Fea
Author's Corner with Noah Eber-Schmid, *Founding Fanatics: Extremism and the Formation of American Democracy*: thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/09/t... @oxfordunipress.bsky.social
The Author’s Corner with Noah Eber-Schmid
Noah Eber-Schmid is Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. This interview is based on his new book, Founding Fanatics: Ex…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 3:33 PM
Reposted by John Fea
"Kid Rock extolled marriage, singing, 'You can always put a diamond on her hand / ’til you can’t,' and Charlie Kirk, the assassinated founder of Turning Point, was heard encouraging marriage in an old audio clip; Bad Bunny hosted an actual wedding..." thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/t...
“Turning Point USA’s halftime show had some surprising overlap with the performance it was meant to protest.”
The quote in the title of this post comes from The Atlantic writer David Graham. Here is a taste of his piece, “When the Two Sides of the Culture War Meet”: Last night, during Super Bow…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 5:09 PM
Reposted by John Fea
"Mises warned that 'Christianity cannot exist side by side with, and within, Capitalism.' Jesus was too much of a socialist. 'No art of interpretation...can find a single passage in the New Testament that could be read as upholding private property...”

thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/c...
Catholicism vs. Neoliberals
Is Catholicism, or, more generally, Christianity, compatible with capitalism? Some thinkers try to harmonize the two systems. But some classical, free-market, pro-individualism liberals, such as Lu…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by John Fea
While the moment was lighthearted on the surface, it revealed something deeper: how quickly humor can become a substitute for thinking. thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/w...
When mocking becomes a “substitute for thinking.”
Musbah Shaheen, a professor of higher education who was teaching a college class at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst titled “Embracing Diversity,” decided to show a clip of conse…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by John Fea
In 2023, Multnomah University, a well-respected Bible college in the evangelical world, merged with Jessup University, an evangelical Christian college in Rocklin, California. Then, as Bob Smietana of Religion News Service writes, “things fell apart.” thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/w...
What happened to Multnomah University?
In 2023, Multnomah University, a well-respected Bible college in the evangelical world, merged with Jessup University, an evangelical Christian college in Rocklin, California. Then, as Bob Smietana…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by John Fea
In today's roundup (Feb. 10, 2026), we have more evangelical responses to the Super Bowl, a sermon I've been waiting for my entire evangelical life, Joe Scarborough on Beth Moore, Max Lucado endorses Cornyn, Mohler on Trump's racist Obama post, & more: thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/e...
Evangelical roundup for February 10, 2026
What is happening today at the intersection of Evangelicalism and politics: Here is the sermon I heard on Sunday at the evangelical megachurch I attend in Madison, WI. I hope you will watch it: ***…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 3:35 PM
Reposted by John Fea
What's the difference between “fortress thinking” & “pilgrimage thinking”? Ep. 133 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home podcast is here. We talk to Jake and Rhonda Jacobsen about their new book, *Christianity and Intellectual Inquiry*: thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/10/e...
Episode 133: “Thinking as Pilgrimage
What is the difference between “fortress thinking” and “pilgrimage thinking”? How do these modes of thinking shape the academy today? In this episode, Rhonda and Douglas Jac…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 10, 2026 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by John Fea
In today's roundup (Feb. 9, 2026), we have evangelical responses to the Super Bowl (and much more!): thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/09/e...
Evangelical roundup for February 9, 2026
What is happening today at the intersection of Evangelicalism and politics? Evangelicals respond to the Super Bowl: *** William Wolfe compares the President of the United States and a Democratic re…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 9, 2026 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by John Fea
"Founding Fanatics looks to the American Founding era to argue that extremism on behalf of democratic claims has and can contribute to the deepening and expansion of popular democracy in the United States." thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/02/09/t...
The Author’s Corner with Noah Eber-Schmid
Noah Eber-Schmid is Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington. This interview is based on his new book, Founding Fanatics: Ex…
thewayofimprovement.blog
February 9, 2026 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by John Fea
Trump marks the Mexican American War by praising Manifest Destiny, divine providence, and sovereignty. John Fea explains what’s missing, why it’s missing, and why that omission matters right now.
On Trump’s “Presidential Message on the Anniversary of Our Victory in the Mexican-American War”
Here it is: Today [Feb. 2, 2026] marks the 178th anniversary of our Nation’s triumph in the Mexican-American War—a legendary victory that secured the American Southwest, reasserted American soverei…
buff.ly
February 7, 2026 at 4:40 PM