I have spent 50 years teaching religion to mostly white evangelical students at Christian colleges and universities from California to Pennsylvania and points in between. Most of those students came from evangelical homes and grew up in evangelical churches, and…
Let’s help evangelical Christians break free of the shame that drives them
As a child, I possessed a somewhat fearful disposition toward the world. After a few years of tearful late-night sit-ins outside my biological father and his new wife’s locked bedroom door, or screaming near-weekly announcements to the employees of my…
How the expectation gap creates trauma for white evangelicals
While they no doubt have inflicted trauma on others, white evangelical Christians in America also experience trauma because of the gap between how they were told the world should work and the way it actually is working.
Baptists, other Protestants spared from effort to restrict worship and evangelism
Issues of religious liberty in the United States are often discussed in terms of wedding cakes, taxpayer-funded church playgrounds and politics in the pulpit. In other parts of the world, it’s more about survival.
Americans feeling ‘warmer’ toward Mormons and Muslims — but not evangelicals
Maybe Mitt Romney should have waited one election cycle to run for president. Romney was dogged by negative perceptions about his Mormon faith during his unsuccessful 2012 bid for the presidency. But new research shows attitudes about Mormons are warming,…
White Christian America declining, but still packs punch
Conservative evangelicals have lost their cultural and political clout as their numbers and vitality wane, author Robert Jones argues in his book The End of White Christian America. The book was published in the summer of 2016 — just a few…
Can the church ever be united?
Last Sunday I had the opportunity to preach at the Rosedale Congregational United Church of Christ (RCC) in Kansas City, Kansas. As RCC is currently without a pastor, I was asked to preach each Sunday this month, and I much…