Two people stepped onto the stage at Hofstra University. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. One of them will likely become the next president of the United Stated of America. Division runs deep in the election. Palpable tension seemed to erupt…
Holding my nose and voting against my beliefs
On January 20, 2017, either Donald J. Trump or Hillary R. Clinton will take the oath and become the 45th president of the United States. Although I can provide thousands of reason why Trump is dangerous to the Latinx community, as…
More than lies and immigration
La versión en español está disponible aquí. “Someone is lying,” I told my son last Wednesday night as I kept flipping channels between the U.S. news networks and the Mexican ones. The major news was Donald Trump’s day trip to…
Baptist pastor helping Trump woo Hispanics
A Texas Baptist pastor aiding the Donald Trump campaign in its outreach to Hispanic voters endorsed the Republican presidential candidate during an interview aired in three parts on The Jim Bakker Show in late July. “Let me go ahead and…
Trump donates $100,000 for flood relief to Baptist church whose interim is conservative activist
Presidential candidate Donald Trump has donated $100,000 for flood relief to a Louisiana Baptist church where Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is serving as interim pastor. The Republican nominee and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, stopped at Greenwell…
Pursuing reverence in a society that doesn’t recognize it
In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks offered an assessment of one of the presidential candidates, noting, “He appears to have no ability to experience reverence which is the foundation of any capacity to admire or serve anything…
In praise of compromise: Reflections on a very strange election
Way back in April, Barack Obama told a CBS reporter, “The single most important question I’m asked these days from other world leaders is ‘What’s going on with your elections?’” I don’t rub shoulders with world leaders, but my Canadian…
Christian, Baptist, Evangelical — two out of three ain’t bad
Recently, someone who presents himself as “religiously unaffiliated” asked: “Aren’t you evangelicals really just the Republican Party at prayer?” We are good friends, so I responded: “Who’s ‘you evangelicals,’ you none?” For those readers who don’t have cable TV or…
The Whore of Babylon: Pimping the Body of Christ to the highest political bidder
“God is on our side” has led to more bloodletting in the form of crusades, wars, colonialism and genocides than any other human caused catastrophe — a truth in which all faith traditions have, at one time or another, participated. All churches have played the “whore,” falling into the temptation of tailoring the liberative Good News to sell a political ideology or party as ordained by God.