Some Thoughts on Dr. Ben Carson’s Prayer Breakfast Speech
Political conservatives are singing the praises of Dr. Ben Carson’s speech last week at the National Prayer Breakfast. Carson, a Johns Hopkins University pediatric surgeon and an evangelical...
View ArticleDavid Barton, Louis L’Amour, and the Use of Historical Evidence
NOTE: A shorter version of this post appeared yesterday at The Way of Improvement Leads Home. The rumors are true. David Barton’s story about children with guns in a 19th century classroom came...
View ArticleThe Long History of the Religious Right
Ever since so many of them embraced the Reagan Revolution during the 1980 election cycle, the political involvement of evangelicals has garnered the attention of scholars and journalists. For many,...
View ArticleThe Secularization of Christian Holidays
The Christmas season starts early in Germany as well. Some stores have had their displays out for weeks, and bakeries are already churning out the Stollen and Plätzchen. I’m trying to imagine what...
View ArticleFlipping the Bird: Reflections on a Thanksgiving Fraud
Americans generally view Thanksgiving as an idyllic affair. Kind Indians wearing paper feathers teaching black-and-white clad Pilgrims to survive in the New England wild. Sitting down to eat tryptophan...
View ArticleA Martin Luther Christmas
On the afternoon of December 25, 1530, Martin Luther preached a Christmas sermon. In the context of a still-chaotic Reformation, a combative Martin Luther railed against “papists,” “Junkers,” and...
View ArticleReforming Hollywood
Reforming Hollywood is a complex and fascinating book. “The prevailing view in histories of American film,” writes William Romanowski, “is that Protestants were determined to impose the rule of...
View ArticleAn Interview with Steven Smith on Religious Liberty
I recently interviewed Steven D. Smith about his new Harvard University Press book, The Rise and Decline of American Religious Freedom. Smith is Warren Distinguished Professor of Law at the University...
View ArticlePenn Prof: Religious Colleges Should Not Be Accredited
University of Pennsylvania professor Peter Conn says at the Chronicle of Higher Education that religious colleges (presumably meaning only conservative Christian colleges) should not receive...
View ArticleThe “Evangelicals” Who Are Not Evangelicals
At the Wall Street Journal, Barton Swaim recently reviewed Steven Miller’s excellent book The Age of Evangelicalism, which I also reviewed at The Gospel Coalition. In my review, I suggested that...
View ArticlePhony Wars
Reform or perish. Cultural and ideological liberals have given such advice to conservative churches for years. Sometimes that advice comes from within, sometimes from outside of those communions. For...
View ArticleCan Evangelicals Become More Likeable?
Over at the New York Times, columnist Nicholas Kristof – one of America’s most open-minded liberal writers – says that secular left-wingers need to admit that many evangelical Christians do a great...
View ArticleYes, Remove the Confederate Flag. But What Then?
I have a pretty strong personal history of wrestling with the memory of the Confederacy. Having lived all over the South, I grew up hearing stories from relatives about the Lost Cause and how the...
View ArticleShould Evangelicals Embrace the “Benedict Option”?
Rod Dreher has been blogging about the need for traditional Christians to embrace the “Benedict Option” of retreat from and engagement with post-Christian society. In a recent post, he commented that...
View ArticleThe Limits of Evangelical Identity Politics
Jimmy Carter’s born-again credentials drew many evangelicals to the polls in 1976. Evangelicals who had never campaigned for a candidate campaigned for Carter. Jerry Falwell, future founder of the...
View ArticleTrump, Evangelicals, and the Democratic Party
White evangelicals have become such an entrenched bloc in the Republican Party that four out of every five of them plan to vote for Trump.
View ArticleDonald Trump and Hillary Clinton, By Their Words
by Katelyn Guichelaar and Kristin Du Mez The national party conventions of the past two weeks have offered us political theatrics, stolen words, and soaring rhetoric. They also provide us with a moment...
View ArticleThe Problem with Protecting our Wives and Daughters
Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad many evangelicals are lining up to condemn Trump’s vulgar behavior, revealed most recently (and incontrovertibly) in the appalling video tape released by the Washington...
View ArticleThe Culture Wars and Evangelical “Evangelism”
Christians, who are people of the Book, follow political scripts as well as biblical scripts. The Right preaches small government and identifies with the Republican Party. The Left preaches an...
View ArticleHomeless: The Evangelical Left in 2016
2016 would appear to be the perfect moment to launch a revitalized evangelical left. Donald Trump, the most secular candidate in American history, has a special talent for violating standards of...
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