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Moving on, and many, many thanks…

So…my recent vacation and related absences also coincided with an offer from PoliticsDaily.com to cover religion for them, as editor Melinda Henneberger announces here in her roundup on the site’s very successful first 100 days.

That means, in short, that I’ll have to sign off from blogging here at Beliefnet after nearly a year and a half of a very rewarding time. This was my first opportunity as a blogger, something that was new for me and challenging–in terms of the commitment, the style of writing, and, yes, keeping up with the feedback and trying to digest it all.

But the traffic grew steadily from a standing start to a very healthy level, and I regret having to leave off. But there are so many fine options at Beliefnet, including Amy Welborn’s Via Media, which has been going like gangbusters for the past few months.

And of course I’ll welcome any and all of your comments at PoliticsDaily. Not all of you will be in agreement (or even charitable–or is that an understatement?!). But I have honestly appreciated the feedback, and, yes, learned from it. And I hope it has been a reciprocal experience at some points.

So thanks to the faithful, friends and foes. Arrivederci a tutti.

Calvin at 500, Calvinism 2.0

Jean Cauvin.jpg If you thought you knew John Calvin–who turned 500 last week–you probably don’t know enough. For example, that he was French, born Jean Cauvin. And if he was in fact scandalized by dancing, he was also a lot more complex than that. I explored the new look Calvin in an essay at PoliticsDaily, “Patron Saint of the Recession.”

So can anything rescue Calvin from his reputation? Some big names are giving it a good shot. Marilynne Robinson, whose 2004 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Home,” is one of the most convincing portraits ever of a Congregational pastor, spends a good deal of time in her essay collection, “The Death of Adam,” trying to rehabilitate Calvin, and doing an admirable job. And a spate of new books timed for the anniversary includes works that highlight Calvin’s pastoral side, and one, from Princeton Seminary professor William Stacy Johnson, that calls Calvin a “Reformer for the 21st Century.” Biblical scholar Roland Boer weighs in with perhaps the most provocative thesis, arguing in “Political Grace: The Revolutionary Theology of John Calvin,” that Calvin was at heart a political radical, not a conservative.

Read the rest here…

Apologia pro vita sua…Kinda

In my defense, I’ve had computer outages and family reunions and a few days of single-parenthood, which is always a bracing reminder of what many parents go through all the time.

And this weekend it’s off for a week’s vacation.

Anyway, hence the long absence. Apologies to those who have checked in faithfully, and I’ll try to put up a few of the many interesting items that are out there. And maybe some thoughts about family reunions.

We have a couple of main roots, one from France and the other through upstate New Yorkers by the name of Cronkite.

Pax.

about

David Gibson

DAVID GIBSON is an award-winning religion journalist, author, filmmaker, and a convert to Catholicism. He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s.

Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name "Karol Wojtyla," and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States.

When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation.

Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism.

Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a "powerful" and "first-rate" treatment of the crisis from "an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber."

His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as "an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book" from "a master storyeller."

Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.

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