On Election Day in Texas, I was working out at the Elzie Odom Recreation Center down the street from my home. As I reached the top of the stairs, I encountered signs pointing right to the Democratic polling room and…
What I learned from a month of MAGA immersion
Are you living in a filter-bubble? Of course you are. Whether you receive most of your information from Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Truth Social or X, you are getting filtered content. The almighty algorithm learns how you think, what you like,…
Is James Talarico an Orc?
James Talarico has the Republican Party running scared. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott rarely mentions Gina Hinojosa, his Democratic rival, but he is going after U.S. Senate candidate Talarico with guns blazing. The assault on Talarico isn’t just coming from Texas,…
Why Canadian evangelicals don’t like Trump
I must begin by admitting that, yes, some Canadian evangelicals actually do like Donald Trump. There is, for instance, a push in the western province of Alberta (where I was raised) to secede from Canada. The leaders of the secession…
Murder and lies in Minneapolis: What’s it all about?
According to the Washington Post, Donald Trump made 30,573 misleading statements between 2016 and 2020, more than half of them during the final year of his first term in office. In Trump’s second term, the Post has lost its enthusiasm…
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
In the course of my 73 years, Christmas greetings from governmental agencies always have been cautiously nonsectarian. On a typical Sunday morning in the mid-1950s, half the population of the United States was in church, and more than 90% of…
What will MAGA Christianity look like in a post-Trump world?
When Donald Trump read the political tea leaves and urged House Republicans to vote for the release of the Epstein files, speculation was rampant. Did this mean Trump’s hold over the GOP was beginning to weaken? Or was his Department…
A massive catechesis failure
A few days ago, I was listening to an audiobook while I drove my 5-year-old grandson, Micah, home from kindergarten. The narrator was talking about A. Philip Randolf, Bayard Rustin and the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom…
Charlie Kirk: Apostle of 1953 America
Charlie Kirk was what historians call a “controversialist.” Prior to his tragic death, Kirk flourished by picking a side in the culture war and telling his people exactly what they wanted to hear. Many in the MAGA movement credit Kirk…
Garrison Keillor: The Pied Piper of liberal Mainline nostalgia
Garrison Keillor is still on the road at 83. From 1974 to 2016, he was on the radio practically every Saturday night at 5:00 Central Time. The show was called A Prairie Home Companion. If you’ve read this far, you…
Can mainline liberals get their story back?
In my most recent column I drew attention to the certainty gap between American evangelicals and mainline Protestants. While 85% of evangelicals and 82% of Black Protestants believe in God without a shadow of a doubt, the same can only…
Evangelical certainty and the God gap
“There are a lot of angry homosexuals out here today,” the man holding the megaphone barked. He had come to Fort Worth’s Trinity Pride Day to speak for God. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I couldn’t let his crude comment…