As immigration remains one of America’s most divisive political issues, a new Christian-produced cop drama is attempting to bring the debate to television audiences — a move one leading advocate commends while noting it misses nuances. On April 30, Christian-backed…
Colbert’s The Late Show farewell enters final week with jokes, tears
Ten months after Stephen Colbert announced CBS was canceling his top-rated Emmy- and Peabody-award-winning late-night show, his joke- and tear-filled farewell enters its final week and its May 21 finale. Colbert is ending well. Recent shows have featured President Barack…
Here’s what Baptists said at Rededicate 250
Despite a lack of religious diversity among the speakers at the Trump administration’s “Rededicate 250” event held last Sunday on the National Mall, conservative Baptists played a prominent role. The speaker lineup for the nine-hour religious festival included two Catholics…
What I saw and heard in DC this weekend
Evangelicals flocked to Washington, D.C., over the weekend to attend the Trump administration’s “Rededicate 250” event on Sunday, which was billed as “rededicating” the country to being “one nation under God.” The night before Trump’s official event — funded by public money…
The Saint Ives Riddle and the work of moral imagination
There are moments when a simple riddle reveals more about our moral life than a shelf of political theory. The old puzzle about the traveler going to Saint Ives is one of those small, durable stories that has survived precisely…
Is pluralism possible under an evangelical Christian God?
What does pluralism mean for people who believe there’s only one way to God, who believe God reigns, but who live in a nation that values liberty and justice for all? This is the question many Christians are wrestling through….
Democracy’s decline tests new United Methodist Church
No United Methodist who knows anything about the denomination’s history can feel anything but profound sadness at what’s happening to the American democratic republic. Good and bad, The United Methodist Church and its predecessors have shaped and been shaped by…
Here’s what’s different about clergy sexual abuse claims in UMC
One of the most consequential rulings on clergy sexual abuse in the entire history of American jurisprudence has received virtually no media attention. Its defendant? The United Methodist Church. In a 2024 ruling in Chestnut v. United Methodist Church, the…
Greg Abbott is on a campaign against religious liberty
One year ago, I wrote about how Texas Gov. Greg Abbott amplified a racist, Islamophobic tweet to further a conspiracy theory about a North Texas Muslim community. The conspiracy was that the planned community, EPIC City, was going to enact…
What Putin’s Altar Boy offers American Christians
Juha Meriläinen, church historian at the University of Helsinki, has written a forthcoming book titled Putin’s Altar Boy. In it, he sounds a warning about the dangers of a church under the influence of the state. Patriarch Kiril, the head…
End-times prophets say we’re about to find out aliens are demons
“The rumors are real,” pastor Mike Signorelli wrote on X. “I was brought into a private briefing with other pastors. No phones, no cameras, no recordings. We were told plainly: Disclosure is coming, and what follows will shake the faith…
Something awful is happening in Sudan, and you don’t know it
The largest humanitarian crisis in the world isn’t happening in Ukraine, or in Gaza, but in Sudan. There, 33.7 million people (out of a total population of 55 million) are in dire need of aid, and the world has forgotten…