We are officially less than a month away from release day for “The Myth of Good Christian Parenting.” @mburtwrites.bsky.social and I invite you to join our launch team!

The new wave of Satanic Panic over popular music doesn’t stem from fiery preachers in suits—this time, it’s Christian influencers and musicians stoking alarm. And they are mobilizing beliefs about musical worship to gain traction. @christianitytoday.com www.christianitytoday.com/2025/07/wors...

Worship as Invasion vs. Worship as Intimacy: "Adam Russell, director of Vineyard Worship USA, said that over the past 20 years, he has seen a movement in contemporary worship music away from intimacy and toward 'intensity'.” @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social www.christianitytoday.com/2025/07/wors...

Christian influencers and artists are starting to call out in the "demonic" in secular songs again. @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social writes for CT about how today's hit worship music is priming the church to see music as power: www.christianitytoday.com/2025/07/wors...

Christian listeners generally know the figures on stage aren’t perfect, but when fans resonate with the music, they want to believe—or at least hope—that the musicians are earnest people of faith. On the Newsboys and guardrails for @christianitytoday.com www.christianitytoday.com/2025/07/news...

Join me & @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social In the Church Library for a conversation with Sunita Theiss to discuss neurodiversity in faith communities and families: www.buzzsprout.com/2463181/epis...

I have been MIA here for a while. Logging back on 👋 Here’s a picture of my youngest preparing her lunch yesterday. Real third-kid behavior here.

Our latest news roundup features insights from @bmietana.bsky.social, @jackjenkins.me, @jesus-jimz.bsky.social, @blytheb.bsky.social, @markwingdallas.bsky.social, @hannahvinueza.bsky.social, @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social, and more!

Barstool conversion rock is faith-flavored, masculine, and at least a little bit country. What’s going on with this wave of worship music for the bros at the bar? www.christianitytoday.com/2025/06/bars...

Beyond excited to announce that I've signed a contract for a 2nd book with @brazospress.bsky.social Tentatively titled "Clean and Holy," the book will explore how the diet and wellness industries have adopted faith language to sell products and ideas about "good" bodies to Christian women.

The once new, become old, made new again: “The cool thing is, there’s nothing new here. The Trinity is the center; it’s the nature of God in three persons. And here’s the oldest hymn we have, reminding us of that.” @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social www.christianitytoday.com/2025/04/anci...

From @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social at @christianitytoday.com www.christianitytoday.com/2025/04/anci...

Next semester, I'm teaching the following courses in our theology program: Worship and the Arts Death and Dying Poverty, Racism, and Power And a humanities seminar on globalization. DREAM semester. Weird to not be teaching music apprec or history for the first time in a bit, but I'm EXCITED.

Delighted to invite you to join @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social and me In the Church Library for informal podcast conversations in this limited run series. www.buzzsprout.com/2463181

How can hymns help the family of God bear one another’s burdens? @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social asked songwriting collective Anchor Hymns:

“The church has never really needed to worry about how corporate worship does or doesn’t engage children; the church has never feared losing them. The church does fear losing their parents, or losing them after they get their driver’s licenses.” Read more: open.substack.com/pub/kkramerm...

BEYOND excited that we can share this cover tell you all that you can pre-order The Myth of Good Christian Parenting! At the link in the thread below, you’ll get a 40% discount. @brazospress.bsky.social @mburtwrites.bsky.social

What is a "global" worship song? @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social reports on the challenges and opportunities for worshiping at international Christian gatherings:

This upcoming book by @mburtwrites.bsky.social and @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social will be fantastic!

It’s cover reveal day! You can pre-order The Myth of Good Christian Parenting now. The link in the post below will take you to the @brazospress.bsky.social site, where you’ll get a 40% discount!

Honored to be a guest at this year's Summer Institute for Global Charismatic-Pentecostal Studies at Emory University. Atlanta-area friends, please join us! Other guests include Propaganda and Dave Bazan. The website is live. Check it out! candler.emory.edu/about-candle...

"By seriously considering the emerging field of child liberation theology and the work of scholars of childhood, church communities may begin to unearth deeply rooted, harmful beliefs about children." ~ @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social

"One way @rlstollar.bsky.social suggests churches might begin to develop a vibrant and practical vision for child inclusion and empowerment is by embracing a theology of play." ~ @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social

Excited to be able to share this article in Religions, “To Be Seen and Heard: Toward a Child Liberation Theology Framework for Contemporary Praise and Worship Practice.” Examining the relationship between beliefs about children and worship practices. www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/16...

My three year-old snuck into the church elevator this morning. We found her after about 5 mins of searching. The fire department showed up a few minutes later 🤦‍♀️🫠 she couldn’t figure out how to open the doors, but she DID figure out how to make an emergency call. How’s your day going?

We did a fact checking assignment in my Media Literacy course last week. We started with a post about raw milk. I think the students’ main takeaway was this: Fact checking is hard and time-consuming. Bad-faith actors know this, and use it to their advantage.

Some facts here—and a defense of what @christianitytoday.com is doing. I’ve had opportunity to test CT's commitment to letting reporters pursue the truth even when it was clear it would hurt. I can tell you this is not a place where the integrity wobbles www.christianitytoday.com/2025/02/chri...

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone except the parent who sent slime valentines to school with their 1st grader 🫠

“Good art must exist because bad art exists (especially in times of increasing authoritarian displays of state power). Responsible journalism must exist because irresponsible journalism exists.” open.substack.com/pub/kkramerm...

“The polyphony of nature is, however, precisely the point… nature is that delightful paradox, a disorderly Wunderkammer of all possible orders.”

Salem Media Group, the largest Christian radio company in the United States, is selling Christian music stations and retiring its Fish brand. The deal marks the media company’s final exit from contemporary Christian music. Read @christianitytoday.com : www.christianitytoday.com/2025/01/the-...

My youngest goes to a play school at a big Lutheran church two mornings a week. Walked by this display of Bible/book studies today. Psalms and Psalms and… Jonathan Haidt.

"Edginess, musical and rhetorical, has long been part of Skillet’s brand. Increasingly, it seems, that edginess is expressing itself through politics." Read my profile of the veteran Christian rock band for @christianitytoday.com www.christianitytoday.com/2025/01/skil...

“Propaganda isn’t effective because it tricks the viewer. It’s effective because it becomes a part of the fabric of the world around us. We might notice it, but its very presence and ability to appear before us is its real power.” On POWS, propaganda, and TikTok. open.substack.com/pub/kkramerm...

"If the unpredictability of children so compromises our vision of musical worship, we should ask ourselves who else might we be pushing aside in our quest for the audiovisual ideal." Appreciate these thoughts by @kkramermcginnis.bsky.social:

Cleaning out our dress-up clothes chest and came across these recent additions. Raising future journalists over here. Currently, they are usually journalists who also wear crowns and Batman masks.

Hate, hunger, and pride make better levers of propaganda than do love or impartiality — Jacques Ellul

I’m teaching Media Literacy this semester. What an exciting/depressing/overwhelming/concerning time to be teaching it. I’m rewriting the syllabus now so that we can start with Facebook and TikTok and how they have reshaped news media consumption.

I’m not the first person to notice this, but so much Christian parenting literature frames “biblical parenting” as a political project, a way of saving American culture. Dobson did this, Tedd Tripp did this, as do countless Christian influencers. In their books and content, the word “biblical”

2025. It just dawned on me that this is the year my first book comes out. A BOOK?!? 😳🤯😆🥳 Coming later this year, cowritten with Marissa Burt: The Myth of Good Christian Parenting: How False Promises Betrayed a Generation of Evangelical Families @brazospress.bsky.social

I have never read Mansfield Park until today. I am quite literally crying and heartbroken as I read chapter two, picturing 10 year old Fanny, exhausted, arriving at Mansfield. Also. WTF Mrs. Norris.

My dissertation research was entirely archival. None of my primary sources are digitized. Archives are SO VERY IMPORTANT.

The Dickens village joins my 1898 edition of Dickens’ collected works for the Christmas season.

Munching on popcorn made from corn grown by my mother-in-law’s in-laws (97 and 93) at their farm, which they still run and live on. Very Iowa.

Fellow journalists and educators: I’m teaching Media Literacy this spring. If you were designing a course, what would be your top 2 topics/case studies/skills to which you would devote at least a week? Top of mind for me: - Conflict of interest - Fair use - libel and defamation - propaganda

Last year, I wrote about musical settings of the Magnificat for @christianitytoday.com We made a playlist to go with the article, and it has some lovely selections if you’re looking for some reflective listening this week: open.spotify.com/playlist/2SU...

Semester grades submitted ✅ Manuscript edits… in progress

Professional music person