“We have to stop demonizing people by calling them whitewashed tombs and vipers.” That might have been a quote in the AD 30 Jerusalem News when a scribe or Pharisee complained about the language Jesus used to describe them. But…
Enough: A Christian response to weaponizing our faith
The assassination of Charlie Kirk has shaken the country, both because of the horror of political violence and because of what the aftermath is revealing about the spiritual bankruptcy of our political culture. The headlines and hot takes were swift:…
Death, politics and the private faith of public power
The decision by Utah prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Tyler Robinson, accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk, has transformed a tragic act into something more than a criminal case. It has become a litmus test for politics,…
Why Trump proudly hates his enemies
Sunday’s memorial for the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk certainly was an interesting spectacle. The five-hour event in Glendale, Ariz., attended by thousands of supporters spread across two arenas, was hardly a somber funeral so much as a combined tent…
Reflections on a five-hour memorial service
I must report a grievous theft. God’s sacred gifts to me, my words, have been stolen. They have been filched and deceptively redefined, their time-honored meanings scrapped and their hollowed sounds marshalled for cheap tricks. This switcharoo is not my…
Mississippi’s ‘strange fruit’ harvested again
Apparently strange fruit is still being harvested. That’s the chilling metaphor of Black bodies hanging from trees in the American South. Mississippi long has been the epicenter of America’s most brutal racial domestic terrorisms, lynchings. Between 1877 and 1950, according…
Abram and Sarai illustrate the danger of obedience in advance
Abram and Sarai’s story in Genesis 12 is more than an ancient moral fable. It is a prophetic mirror for our political moment. When famine strikes, Abram and Sarai flee to Egypt as refugees. On the way, Abram begins to…
Bad Indians Book Club aims to inspire the resistance
In a world that is increasingly polarizing along religious, racial and ethnic lines, the solidarity that happens when we set aside the political categories meant to keep us apart and talk to each other is becoming critical to our survival….
In conversation with Matthew Boedy
Matthew Boedy is a professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia, a leading expert on Turning Point USA and its founder, Charlie Kirk, and the author of an important and alarming new book The Seven Mountains…
Another year, another apocalyptic prediction
Recent days have once again seen a flurry of speculations regarding the return of Christ in what is commonly referred to as the “rapture” or the parousia. A message has been rapidly spreading through social media suggesting the rapture is…
When the burden for ending sexual assualt is left only to girls
“Girls are raped all the time.” “Girls as young as 10 are raped in the community.” “Girls get pregnant as early as 13 — mostly due to rape.” These were the matter-of-fact statements I heard, over and over, during focus…
Why Jennifer Knapp’s newest album ‘resonates’ with me
On Sept. 4, Jennifer Knapp’s newest recording venture hit the market. In this five-song extended play collection, Resonant, she pulled together some of her favorites covers. The term “resonant” refers to a deep, clear echoing of sound, and these songs…