I recently witnessed, in the course of a few hours, a stunning contrast between three presidents. First, our nation’s current president shared an AI video depicting himself as a crown-wearing fighter pilot who bombs No Kings Day protesters with liquified…
Is Christian nationalists’ use of Romans 13 kinky or perverted?
A pastor praying outside an ICE facility in Chicago gets shot in the head by a pepper pellet and collapses to the ground in pain. Commentators dispute whether the protesters had been warned to leave, although currently circulating videos don’t…
Cancel church for ice and snow, not ICE and shootings
Mass shootings will outnumber snowstorms this year. That sentence hurts to write; may it haunt us. The decision to cancel church for inclement weather involves the complex interaction of values — safety vs. commitment; feelings — fear of injury vs….
7 things to do to oppose MAGA authoritarianism
“Time heals all wounds.” That’s the most galactically stupid saying in the English language. It’s like saying, “Time hits all baseballs.” While it takes time for a baseball to get from mound to plate, time doesn’t hit the ball. We…
How not to be a ‘brood of vipers’
“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…
No, MAGA supporters aren’t the same as Nazis
We humans love dichotomies. For example, when we meet someone, our brains tend to classify the person as masculine/feminine, taller/shorter, etc. Of course, false dichotomies abound. While a woman is either pregnant or not, a person can have both masculine…
Sydney Sweeney, great jeans, the Bible and hell
Ukrainians continue to be blown to bits by Russian bombs. Palestinian children continue to starve amidst a genocide. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, “Sydney Sweeney has great jeans.” Gasp. In case you’ve been living under a Dwayne Johnson, a controversy…
ICE, Gaza and the threat of stupid Jesus
“They killed the boy.” That was the explanation a Bible professor once gave me for why Jesus wasn’t a good model of leadership. The Christian scholar had been describing how, many years before, a subordinate had proposed holding a pastor’s…
These teachers taught me how to do nothing
My undergraduate Baptist college adviser was looking over his glasses at me as I prattled on and on about all I was doing. In my final semester, I was taking 18 hours in an attempt to pull a final-semester 4.0…
People I met at the No Kings rally in Nashville
Since more than 80% of evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in 2024, when seeking folks to interview at the June 14 No Kings protest in Nashville, Tenn., I sought those bearing religious-oriented posters to explore their perspectives. With several…
God’s hand, sex and 2020 vision
Let’s analyze a political celebrity’s claim about God. For comparison: In summer 1986, while I was on a Christian college mission trip to the Philippines, my parents and my younger sisters were taking a very out-of-the-way route to Myrtle Beach,…
Ironing a distorted funhouse mirror: Healing cognitively driven depression
At the campus counseling center, I had promised my therapist, Chrissy, that, unlike previous forays into counseling, I would be completely honest. In a previous article on dealing with depression, I described how being honest with a college student convinced…