In the wake of the violence of January 6, 2021, some observers wondered why the insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol weren’t charged with domestic terrorism. The reason is simple: There is no standalone federal crime on the books for domestic...
The Trump administration is proposing a new rule that would tie the availability of Pell grants and student loans to the earning potential of degree programs. This proposal is beyond terrible for a multitude of reasons. First, it ignores the actual…
There are nights in disaster shelters when the exhaustion becomes almost physical in the air. You can feel it hanging over rows of cots and folding chairs long after midnight. Volunteers move more slowly. Children finally fall asleep. Coffee grows…
Anti-Muslim legislation and policies violate the U.S. Constitution’s requirement that government remain neutral in matters of religion, said Amanda Tyler, executive director of Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. Tyler offered the perspective during a May 13 House Judiciary subcommittee…
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…
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….
“We are living in terrifying times, but we are people of faith,” U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told members of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta last Sunday. The New York Democrat made a surprise appearance May 10 at the historic church,…
On May 17, Donald Trump plans to “rededicate” America as one nation under God. The promotional material for the event says, “Rededicate 250 will gather a broad assembly of voices united by a love of God and country.” In fact,…
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…
I’m sitting at a sunroom table, my 84-year-old parents to my right and left. Dad just asked Mom, “Did you find my will in the safe deposit box?” She had. Moments ago, to make sure they had their bases covered,…
The already twisting legal case involving Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s defense of claims it failed to protect a female student from sexual abuse took another odd turn May 7 in a Fort Worth, Texas, courtroom. A Tarrant County District Court jury found the seminary’s…
The man who once put his name on steaks, bottled water, perfume, wine and a real estate “university” that Marco Rubio called “an absolute scam” is now doing the same with government institutions and programs he controls. President Donald Trump…
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry recently dismissed the idea that racism remains structurally relevant in Louisiana politics, calling it a “failed narrative.” A failed narrative? In Louisiana? A state where African Americans make up nearly one-third of the population, yet political…
