Paige Patterson has written an online post extolling the virtues of independent Baptists and praising them for “keeping the main thing the main thing.” That “main thing,” the former Southern Baptist Convention seminary president said, is evangelism. Patterson’s May 3…
Anti-abortion activists and legislators claim Justice Department favors abortion providers and ignores violence against crisis pregnancy centers
You may not know this if you’re not tuned in to conservative media, but the FBI has an agenda to protect abortion clinics and punish conservatives generally and anti-abortion conservatives specifically. So goes the narrative believed by many anti-abortion advocates,…
Why Iran’s ‘morality police’ might seem like a good idea to some American evangelicals
A woman in Tehran, Iran, was detained by the so-called “morality police” on allegations she didn’t wear a head scarf in public. She died in police custody. Protests have ensued across Iran. Women have appeared in public with bare heads….
Government by quips, tweets and slogans
Once upon a time, a politician with a quick wit conveyed confidence, intelligence and a sense of humor. Americans loved politicians who could think quickly on their feet under pressure. Now, we get packaged, pre-written statements read from a teleprompter….
Taking out the 2021 trash talk
Country singer Tim McGraw may not have known the social theory that informed his 1995 hit, I Like It, I Love It. As the song’s title hints, something has happened to McGraw that has changed his usual ill-mannered, trashy ways….
When did ‘woke’ become a four-letter word?
The Texas Legislature is currently considering bills forbidding the teaching in public schools of Critical Race Theory or the notion that America’s founding on slavery and taking land from indigenous people might in any way complicate the greatness of our…
Huge hurdles ahead for Dreamers despite high court’s DACA ruling
“There’s always that fear that at any point in time it could be stopped or ended.”
An American Taliban?
Has the Christian Right morphed into an American version of the Taliban? Are these folks trying to transform America into a fundamentalist theocracy? Don’t they talk about making the Bible the law of the land? Don’t they speak of “taking…
The American Way(s) of Life
In his 1955 best-seller, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, sociologist Will Herberg wrote that “it is the American Way of Life that supplies American society with an ‘overarching sense of unity’ amid conflict.” Sixty-one years later, amid divisive ideologies of presidential politics,…