As Congress and the country focus on Donald Trump’s incoming administration and cabinet picks, Americans are paying less attention to outgoing leaders such as Mitt Romney, the principled Mormon Republican senator whose six-year term featured regular critiques of both Trump…
Two young leaders exemplify the alarm over Trump
Donald Trump’s return to the White House is “the absolute worst case scenario,” according to religion scholar Matthew Taylor. “We’re in an epochal shift in American history of the worst sort, and while it does not spell the absolute end…
Matthew Taylor’s new book explores how ‘the fringe became the carpet’
Matthew Taylor’s timely and disturbing new book, The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy, explores the politicization of America’s independent charismatics and neo-Pentecostals and the resulting “charismaticization of right-wing politics.” Taylor bids farewell to…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Nancy French
I’ve known Nancy French for some years now, if by “know” we count social media connection, which I do. I’ve gotten out of the habit of talking about disagreements with people; I look for places of connection and ask whether…
David French lays out the facts on how his family was attacked by fellow members of the PCA
New York Times columnist David French laid out the story of how his family got canceled by their Presbyterian church in an explosive June 9 opinion piece published in the Sunday Times. The conservative columnist cited chapter and verse for…
The Strict Father model is killing us
George Lakoff has given the world one of the most helpful and depressing models of understanding the differences between liberals and conservatives and how we think — what he calls the moral mind. His book Moral Politics: How Liberals and…
Trump the totem
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…
Politics, faith and mission: A conversation with Samuel Perry
Samuel Perry is the Sam K. Viersen Presidential Professor at the University of Oklahoma and a leading interpreter of conservative Christianity and American politics, race, families and sexual behavior. I rely on his research from his placement as sociologist and…
The Toxic Evangelical Variant
It’s not an exaggeration to say the evangelical church saved me in every way a person can be saved. They introduced me to Jesus. They became the family my childhood family could not be. They loved and affirmed me. They…