On My Way to the ASCH Conference in Atlanta

 I have been enjoying a wonderful winter break, and feel refreshed for the start of the spring semester at UTC, which begins next week. Over the break, I turned in the manuscript for my forthcoming book with Oxford University Press entitled, Jonathan Edwards and Transatlantic Print Culture. I also have been relearning guitar with my oldest son, who received a Fender Squier beginner package for Christmas. I had so much fun playing his guitar that I went out and bought a used Fender Mexican-made Stratocaster deluxe player (pictured to the right). I have owned a Fender acoustic-electric guitar for years, but put it away when I quit my job as a stockbroker to start graduate studies. That was over ten years ago! If I had known how much fun it is to play the electric guitar, I would not have taken such a long hiatus!

I leave for Atlanta this afternoon to attend the annual ASCH conference. I won't arrive in time to attend any of today's sessions, which is a bummer because I really wanted to hear the panels assembling this afternoon to honor Mark Noll. Besides visiting the book exhibit, I plan on attending the Conference on Faith and History breakfast reception, the discussion on Grant Wacker's biography of Billy Graham, and the panel on John Corrigan's book, Emptiness: Feeling Christian in America. I also look forward to the presidential address by Margaret Bendroth and the reception that follows.

On Sunday morning, from 8:30am-10:30am, I will be chairing a panel on "Reframing Religious Reform through Childhood: From Sixteenth-Century England to Nineteenth-Century America." Rick Kennedy of Point Loma Nazarene University will provide commentary on the following papers:

• Bryan Maine (Baylor University): "Parents as Educators on the Eve of the Reformation: Richard Whitford and His 'A Werke for Householders' (1530)"
• Lincoln Mullen (George Mason): "The Religion of Children and Families in the Nineteenth-Century United States"
• Elise Leal (Baylor University): "Bringing Little Ones to Christ: The Evangelical Transformation of American Sunday Schools and Changing Attitudes toward Childhood Conversion, 1790-1824"

Please consider attending this session.