The year is skidding to a halt. As always, logorrhetes like your humble editor begin frantically compiling year-end lists. This year, ILYBYGTH has scratched together a list of the nine best end-of-year ten best lists. (I tried for ten, but I didn’t want to dilute these pages with chaff.) What were the year’s biggest stories in religion, education and culture?
First, for pure bravado, is Michael Petrilli’s “My Ten Best Articles of the Year.” The free-marketeer explains why poverty does not explain weak test scores, why schools should be more eager to get rid of disruptive students, and how schools can help fix the “marriage crisis.”
Next, Religion Dispatches offers a list (okay, it’s only six) of the biggest religion-related survey finds of 2015. Do Americans think the US is a Christian Nation? Do we think Christians are being discriminated against? Is the Pope a (helpful) Catholic? And more!
Who’s the victim here?
Number three: The Chronicle of Higher Education has gathered its own top ten stories. They are locked up, I’m afraid, but if you have a subscription it’s worth exploring. There are some biggies in here, including Steven Salaita’s reflections on his experience as a loud-mouth academic walking the line between “freedom” and “hate speech;” Laura Kipnis’s essay about campus revolutionaries eating their young (and their old); and thoughts on the reality of transitioning from one race to another.
Four: What did evangelicals think? Christianity Today put together a list of its top twenty stories. (Sorry, they didn’t read the ILYBYGTH rules, either.) What do evangelicals think about same-sex marriage? What makes a church a cult? Plus porn, Christian colleges, and missionaries.
And fifth, what were the science geeks at the National Center for Science Education up to in 2015? Minda Berbeco reviews their efforts to combat creationism, climate-change denialism, and other modern science bugbears.
What did 2015 look like from the perspective of a smart-mouthed progressive penguin?
Seeing clearly through nostalgic red visors…
What books did thoughtful non-conforming conservative intellectuals enjoy in 2015? Check out the American Conservative’s list of the year’s top reads.
Coming in at number eight, at ThinkProgress, Dylan Petrohilos gives us a sobering account of the numbers of people killed by police in 2015.
Last but not least, Lauren Turek at Religion in American History has compiled a list of religion panels at the upcoming meeting of the American Historical Association in Atlanta. It’s not a top-ten list, and it’s not a look back at the glories of 2015, but I’m including it anyway. For one thing, it starts off with our culture-wars panel (more on that to come). Also, listing all these retrospectives was getting a little maudlin, so I wanted to include something about the future.
I Love You but You're Going to Hell 