Last week’s historic verdict is worth rehearsing. On May 30, Donald J. Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime. Twelve ordinary citizens unanimously found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in…
Alyssa Farah Griffin set her MAGA world on fire and now seeks to warn others
It may appear that Alyssa Farah Griffin is on top of the world. Evenings she weighs in on news and politics on CNN. Weekdays she’s one of the female hosts of ABC’s “The View,” TV’s most popular daytime program, which…
As MAGA pastors gain influence, let’s talk about peace instead of power
“Kind of disturbing” is how journalist Katie Couric described an Axios piece about how Donald Trump built an insurmountable lead in Monday’s Iowa caucus by catering to evangelical MAGA pastors. “They say obviously they embrace Trump because of the Supreme Court justices who helped…
Fundamentalism is a mindset more than a theology, David French says
Christian fundamentalists are drawn to Donald Trump’s MAGA movement by a shared commitment to “certainty, ferocity and loyalty,” New York Times columnist David French said. “There isn’t one fundamentalist theology, but there is a fundamentalist mindset, and that fundamentalist mindset…
MAGA followers are not stupid
The stupid epidemic has arrived. Entire Christian denominations insist there is only one way to read the Bible, and they expel anyone daring to dissent. Politicians and the media reach for the accusation of “stupid” out of the intractable arguments….
Five charts that explain the desperate turn to MAGA among conservative white Christians
New data from PRRI’s Census of American Religion show continued decline of white evangelicals as a proportion of the American population. I prefaced my 2016 book, The End of White Christian America, with an “Obituary for White Christian America.” It read,…
Autocracy as heresy
During the social revolution in South Africa that brought an end to the era of apartheid and a government of white supremacy, Allan Boesak, a Black South African theologian, wrote, “Apartheid is heresy.” And not only that, he later wrote,…
The ‘MAGA faction’ could be a hindrance for multiracial congregations
One of the prized goals of evangelical and mainline churches in America today is to create multiethnic congregations. But the same political trends that are making life difficult for pastors also bode ill for multicultural churches. New research published Jan….
One year later: Some musings on post-COVID culture and social ethics
When this column appears, it will be exactly one year since my last trip to the airport. One year since I lectured outside my own home or university. Just under one year since my Mercer classes went to Zoom for…