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Agnes Howard

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September 2026

September 14, 2026

Stop Calling It an Empty Nest. Start Calling It Home.

You're Not a Bird, Your Kids Aren't Either GUEST POST by Agnes R. Howard As...

May 2022

May 16, 2022

Reconsider the Stepmother

Among his many other exceptional qualities, Abraham Lincoln had high regard for his stepmother. Sarah...

March 2022

March 21, 2022

The Scandal of the Evangelical Professor Mommy

When I was pregnant and finishing my dissertation, a beloved dean told me about one...

December 2021

December 27, 2021

Telescope Seeks Birth of Universe while We Rejoice that in the Beginning Was the Word

Something new happened on Christmas Eve in French Guiana: the launch of the James Webb...

November 2021

November 01, 2021

The Boy who Missed the Circus

On July 6, 1944, exactly a month after the Allies' D-day landing at Normandy, the...

September 2021

September 06, 2021

Piety and Public Health in Early America

Once upon a time in the City of Brotherly Love, a Lutheran minister, led by...

March 2021

March 22, 2021

For God So Loved the World He Gave Us Sundried Tomatoes

God wants you to be temperate but could not possibly expect you to be svelte....

January 2021

January 25, 2021

Grief and Hope, American Style

In our season of tumult, grief, and new hope, the film Pieces of a Woman,...

November 2020

November 30, 2020

Covid Christmas: I say to hell with it

Yes, Virginia, it’s our first Covid Christmas and there isn't a Santa Claus. Having passed...

October 2020

October 05, 2020

Rereading Gilead

It’s time to reread Gilead. Last week’s release of Marilynne Robinson’s new novel about the...

July 2020

July 13, 2020

Why Should Kids Go Back to School?

What is school for? To answer that question Massachusetts Bay colonists invoked the devil. The...

June 2020

June 15, 2020

Church Ladies Do More than Doughnuts

After church when I was a little my siblings and I would file down to...

March 2020

March 09, 2020

Casualty of Coronavirus: Ecumenism

Something important got lost this past Leap Year Day. February 29, 2020 was supposed to...

February 2020

February 10, 2020

What Childbirth Reveals

"I love to look at the work of God. I love to see the work...

October 2019

October 21, 2019

Imagining Motherhood and the Past

Present day visions of motherhood may feel so askew that we might look in many...

July 2019

July 15, 2019

Oberlin’s Better Self

Not much more needs to be said on the conflict between Oberlin College and Gibson’s...

June 2019

June 17, 2019

Learning from the Nuns

For a few years now, Catholic sisters and religiously unaffiliated young-ish people have been finding...

May 2019

May 20, 2019

Again with the Evils of E-cigarettes

Someday, soon perhaps, the Juul e-cigarette will pass into the heap of cast-off youth fads and...

March 2019

March 25, 2019

Did the Bible Predict Our President?

The New York Times recently profiled Jonathan Cahn, celebrity New Jersey pastor who interprets the Bible to explain—nay, predict—signs...

January 2019

January 28, 2019

It’s Cold Outside

But we expect it to be—don’t we? What is the big deal about winter if...

December 2018

December 31, 2018

Why Raising Chickens Should Not Be Your New Year’s Resolution

Who doesn’t long for an integrated life? A life that holds together the varied offices,...

December 03, 2018

Bleak Days for a Chosen People

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, Thomas Jefferson famously...

October 2018

October 08, 2018

Puritans Were Right: Stop Checking Your Email

The Puritan logic of the Sabbath does much better than our current advice to guard...

August 2018

August 13, 2018

College Parties and Christian Ethics

Can theology fix the college-party scene? In a recent book, College Hookup Culture and Christian Ethics,...

July 2018

July 16, 2018

Children’s Advocates: New England Puritans

Children are very much with us in summer. If this summer's most disheartening images feature...

June 2018

June 12, 2018

The Anxious Bench’s Favorite Historic Sites in Europe

For many of us, summer is a time to leave home and explore other places....

April 2018

April 23, 2018

Does Everything Happen For a Reason?

Life is hard. Sometimes it is very hard, pain beyond the ordinary forecast for the...

March 2018

March 12, 2018

Do Puritans (still) hold the key to America?

Marilynne Robinson, writer of beautiful novels and perspicacious essays, turns some attention to New England...

February 2018

February 12, 2018

When the Neighbors See Mary

In the mid-1990s my husband and I, living in southern Germany for his fellowship year,...

October 2017

October 23, 2017

Devotion to Luther and the Saints

Saints are not to be idolized, obviously, but nor are they supposed to be milked...