“Take him out! Blow him up! Take him out! Blow him up!” the children chant during a vacation Bible school program at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky. With eerie music looming over the scene, the viral TikTok video...
“The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings,” according to philosopher Eric Hoffer. I grew up in church singing the beloved hymn by Johnson Oatman Jr., “Count Your Blessings.” What is a blessing? And…
Less than three weeks after 76% of the faculty at Hardin-Simmons University voted “no confidence” in President Eric Bruntmyer, the West Texas school’s trustees gave him a three-year contract extension. “The board has full confidence in President Bruntmyer and believes…
“Blessed to be a blessing.” I’ve heard it a million times. You have, too, if you go to the kind of church that recycles catchy slogans (which is most churches). Sure, it’s a cliche. But I like it. Because it…
The man elected to lead Oklahoma public schools for the next four years believes the state’s teachers all need remedial education from a conservative evangelical school in Michigan in order to teach “true history” that favors “Judeo-Christian values.” Republican candidate…
Antisemitism, one of the world’s earliest and most enduring conspiracy theories, is again rearing its ugly head. With origins in ancient Greece, antisemitism became a hallmark of Christian-Jewish relations across the centuries. It is with us yet. Writing in the…
Americans who embrace democracy and shun conspiracy theories have reason to be cautiously optimistic about the U.S. political system after the 2022 midterm elections, said Norman Eisen, founder and executive chair of the States United Democracy Center. Nov. 8 was…
As dire as the global climate crisis is, human action to mitigate disaster actually has made the future less bad than it would have been, according to one of the world’s foremost climate scientists — who also happens to be…
Veterans Day doesn’t lend itself to commercial attention like its twin, Memorial Day, probably because it’s squeezed between two other cash-registering holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving, and it does not coincide with a car-cultural observance like the Indy 500 auto race….
Theological education has been my life’s work, and it has been a joyful and traumatic pursuit at three schools: Southern Seminary, Central Seminary, and now United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities. I would consider myself blessed to have labored…
Churches and individual Christians must become more ardent in their opposition to Christian nationalism in the wake of the midterm elections, according to John Dorhauer, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ. “We must seek to engage…
This election season has been a hard spiritual journey, as well as a grimy political slog. Rancor ran rampant, spilling out of campaign rallies and whistlestops, bounding onto our screens. Candidates mongered fear, amplified animosity and spewed indignation. Now, we…
A Baptist pastor in North Carolina won his race for the local school board Nov. 8, pledging to stand against the national movement to cast doubt on public education and limit the teaching of race and American history. Alan Sherouse,…
