On Dec. 7, 1941, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was attacked by the Empire of Japan, an event that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called “a day of infamy.” On Jan. 6, 2021, the land of the free…
On coronavirus beliefs, ‘It’s evangelical Protestants against everyone else’
When asked in October to list their top concerns, white evangelicals listed abortion, fair presidential elections and terrorism. The coronavirus didn’t make the cut, noted Robert P. Jones, CEO and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute. “Looking at their…
2020 vote shows religious identity held steady with slight change among Catholics and Mormons
Religious identity trends appear to have held fairly steady in the 2020 presidential election, based on a combination of exit polling and pre-election surveys. Because of the enormous number of Americans who voted by mail or in advance this year,…
Remembering Amos: Where white evangelicals lost their way
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…
‘Pro-life evangelicals’ endorse Biden, Dobson rallies forces for Trump, and ‘MAGA Church’ debuts
More than 5,000 “pro-life evangelicals” have signed an online letter noting their opposition to abortion but the necessity of voting for Joe Biden in this year’s presidential contest. “As pro-life evangelicals, we disagree with Vice President Biden and the Democratic…
Racial justice may need to go around evangelicals since it gets stopped going through them
This summer, in the midst of the ongoing protests over yet another rash of police and white vigilante lynchings of Black people, some unexpected voices seemed to be joining the cries for justice. In June we witnessed evangelical Christians marching…
BNG webinar to feature Mark Galli, former editor of Christianity Today
Mark Galli, former editor in chief of Christianity Today, will be the next speaker in BNG’s webinar series, “Conversations That Matter.” The first webinar, offered Sept. 14, featured a panel of mental health experts talking about how to maintain good…
Jesus and John Wayne exposes militant masculinity in the age of Trump
Why Donald Trump? Why are American evangelicals so enamored of a president who could serve as a poster boy for the seven deadly sins?
California and the making of American evangelicalism
Conceptualizing the American religious landscape can be a challenging task these days. We may think about Roman Catholicism’s prevalence in parts of New England or Lutheranism’s prevalence in the Midwest. Mormonism certainly composes a significant portion of the population in…