The task of offering an analysis of the movie Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin has been complicated for me because the promotion for the movie shows Dietrich Bonhoeffer with a gun in his hand. My attempts to recover from this misleading…
Democracy 2025 coalition will challenge Trump and Project 2025
An alliance of leading pro-democracy organizations has launched a campaign to challenge anticipated Trump policies that pose economic, political and religious liberty threats to the nation. Democracy 2025 is a coalition of more than 280 legal and advocacy groups representing…
Ryan Walters orders all Oklahoma schoolchildren to pray for Trump
In Oklahoma, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is at it again. The man who has made controversial statements about Black history, who promotes a Christian nationalist agenda for curriculum and who demands teachers have Bibles in their classrooms…
Did Trump voters know what they were getting? Pew surveys say yes
With every announcement of a cabinet-level nomination that seems more shocking than the last, Americans who are not on the Trump train are struggling to understand how many of the president-elect’s actions will be agreeable to his base and whether…
Calling the cows
I lay in bed, awakened from what otherwise would have been a restful night of sleep. The question that had plagued my conscience had now intruded upon my sleep: Why do so many conservative Christians so blindly follow Donald Trump?…
A tale of two Trump supporters
Less than an hour after Donald Trump was shot, one of my most liberal friends posted a meme making light of the situation. I phoned to confront the callousness. Things got heated. When I blurted, “Stop acting like a 2-year-old,”…
Yes, truth matters
As one who writes and creates with words, fact-checking and truth are second nature. Double-checking credible sources brings us closer to understanding the issue. Unlike writing a diary, I aim to reach the reader and make a connection. Well-chosen words…
Are we still of any use?
“And so it begins.” As nominations for leadership of government agencies are announced by the newly elected American president, the words of Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, written around Christmas 1942, seem startlingly relevant: We have been silent witnesses of evil…
The slippery slope of unchallenged lies
The day after the election, a good friend who is a conservative Republican called to check on me, realizing I would be in a puddle of disbelief. My friend, who is a seminary-educated Southern Baptist and very smart, told me…