Skip to content
Accessibility tools
What's Tony Thinking
July 11, 2025 —
Occasionally, I do a blog that mostly draws from things I have read or listened to that week and which I found noteworthy. As another week draws to a close, here’s one of those. I hope the headline “The Death of the Public Library” is hyperbole, but the issue it discusses is real, and real... Read More
July 7, 2025 —
Sometime this spring something changed with my email. Now my emails were categorized, with only some of them showing in my in-box. Some bot somewhere started sorting my mail. Instead of everything coming to my “in-box,” I suddenly had half a dozen different categories for what was coming to my in-box. One was labeled “important,”... Read More
July 5, 2025 —
It’s the season for summer reading lists. In that spirit, I’m going to do a series of posts on three books I’ve been reading, The Big Relief by David Zahl, Believe by Ross Douthat and Discovering Christianity, A Guide for the Curious by Rowan Williams. No, they probably do not qualify as “summer” or “beach” reading. All are non-fiction.... Read More
July 3, 2025 —
It is the 4th of July in a fraught and divided nation, a nation in turmoil. Some are giddy with the seeming success of Donald Trump and MAGA’s agenda. Many are frightened, scared. How to live now? What to think? How to pray? I’ve previously mentioned the podcast, “Good Faith.” It comes from evangelical spaces,... Read More
June 30, 2025 —
Over the last year I’ve been working for the United Church of Canada on a project titled, “Re-Imagining Theological Education.” At mid-year the project got re-directed by an announcement from the Lilly Endowment for Religion of a new “Large Grant” program. The grants, of up to $10 million, are for collaborative efforts by theological schools... Read More
June 25, 2025 —
My impression is that most people who care about the state of American democracy consider Donald Trump to be threat # 1. I agree that he and his imperial and corrupt presidency are a serious threat. But I’m not sure it’s the only, or even, the main threat to our democracy. So what is? The... Read More
June 22, 2025 —
In historian Gary Gerstle’s book The Rise and Fall of the Neo-Liberal Order, Gerstle pays particular attention to the post-9/11 War in Iraq as a symptom of the failures of the”neo-liberal” consensus with its almost total reliance on free markets as the solution to everything, and its corollary distrust of government action. As Gerstle describes it,... Read More
June 21, 2025 —
Happy Summer Solstice and Longest Day of the Year: 16 hours of daylight here in the Pacific Northwest. Some gleanings from this week’s reading all of which point, to me, toward the need for the conversion of our hearts. Envy and It’s Antidote: Gratitude. Russell Ball had a deeply thoughtful piece at the NYT this week... Read More
June 16, 2025 —
Minnesota Congressman Dean Philips wrote an excellent piece about the terrible murders and shootings of his colleagues at “The Free Press.” I encourage you to read the whole thing, but I highlight this paragraph in particular. “The major political parties and leaders who fertilize these dangerous fields [of political violence] wonât acknowledge their roles or... Read More
June 13, 2025 —
On the last four or five miles of our day’s walk from Ambleside to Coniston we were joined by Luke, a red-haired and bearded 32-year-old from New Hampshire. Luke was on a three month ramble, which had already taken him to New Zealand and SE Asia. His wife had stayed home with the cat. “It’s... Read More
![Anthony B. Robinson [logo]](https://www.anthonybrobinson.com/wp-content/themes/anthonybrobinson/images/logo.png){kind=logo}
![Anthony B. Robinson [logo]](https://www.anthonybrobinson.com/wp-content/themes/anthonybrobinson/images/logo-print.png){kind=logo}