The stories of Graham Platner and Roy Moore, although unfolding in different parties and different eras, trace the same institutional pattern: Modern political parties elevate outsiders when they are useful and abandon them when they become inconvenient. Platner and Moore...
Fred Shuttlesworth and I grew up just a few miles from each other. He was Black and I am white. He lived in a city nicknamed “Bombingham,” while I lived in what white people called “the City of Churches.” How’s…
In one week, President Donald Trump did something no U.S. president has done so brazenly in the history of the Republic: He praised God for bombs being dropped on Iran, then pivoted to call for a cease-fire, only to later…
Americans who originally backed President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign are having a change of heart due to protests, military involvement and the targeting of immigrants without criminal histories, migrant advocates and new polling suggest. “It seems the deportation operations…
For a decade now, the Southern Baptist Convention has abided a voracious liar in its midst and done nothing publicly to silence him. That liar is Allen Jordan, who lives in Houston and is the most persistent denier of a…
Theologian Miroslav Volf writes, “I’ve come to believe … that the Christ of the Gospels has become a moral stranger to us.” He adds, “If you read the Gospels, the things that profoundly mattered to Christ, they marginally matter to…
A Louisiana law requiring Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms was ruled unconstitutional by a unanimous federal appeals court June 20. “Parents and students challenge a statute requiring public schools to permanently display the Ten Commandments in every classroom…
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” — Hosea 4:6 Before it ever was called Iran, this storied nation was known to the world as Persia, an identity stretching back more than 3,000 years. The name “Iran” is derived…
“Trey’s Law” is now the law of the land in Missouri and Texas after governors Mike Kehoe and Greg Abbott signed their versions of the bill this month. On June 10, Missouri Gov. Keheo signed SB-81, a comprehensive public safety…
The words “Deadhead” and “Christian” aren’t often spoken in the same sentence, if only because the former doesn’t seem to have much to do with the latter. But upon deeper inspection, there may be more overlap than one might think….
“Speak up for the voiceless. …. Defend the rights of the poor.” Those words from Proverbs 31:8-9 are among the many in Scripture that call the people of God to a life of empathy and advocacy— a wide stream of…
Twenty-one years ago this month, I attended my first ever Pride Festival. I was living in Chicago at the time, and many of my new friends in our master of music program at Northwestern were going and invited me along….
This spring, graduating Baylor University English/political science major Katie Gaitan sat with me in back-to-back classes. She was smart and compassionate, always prepared and an incredible resource for me as a professor. As the semester moved toward a close, she…
