Tag: Politics

  • The fundamentalist mind

    Fundamentalism isn’t consigned to the conservative/evangelical wing of American Christianity. But, there are issues without doubt. David French writes:

  • The horrors we ignore

    Back in the 90s and early 2000’s there were a couple of movies set in Africa where a line was said in both that summed up the world’s attitude: “This is Africa. Nobody cares about Africa.” Sure, rock stars and then Christian artists got together a couple of times and sang some songs and raised some money… and then?

  • My search for beautiful things

    Politics is heating up. Rhetoric is heating up. My mind is spinning from the lies spewing out about … shocker … immigrants. People seeking refuge from chaos, corruption, and real danger have come to the United States to find … chaos, corruption, and real danger. What are we doing?

  • The failure of evangelicals in politics

    This chapter from Dallas Willard’s book, Renewing the Christian Mind, stood out to me because it wasn’t written in 2016 or 2020 or 2024. It was around 2009 when Dallas wrote that article. Even 15 years ago, he had this question:

  • Those times when a phrase or a sentence just stops you

    I can make a bad habit of cruising through an article or opinion piece and letting things just float by. It can be an article I agree with or an opinion piece that makes me mad, but I take in the whole of the piece and sometimes forget to pay attention to details. A piece I read by Nicholas Kristof…

  • Personal rules for the political season

    A few rules I have for the political season: Voting for the lesser of two evils is still evil. To all political candidates: “It’s my vote. You have to EARN it!” I am not entitled to your opinion, nor you to mine

  • The problem of “bully” politics

    What can be learned from this history? There was for many of us in the mid-2010s a profound sense that something was missing in our common life in America. Material abundance seemed, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned, inextricably bound up with spiritual poverty. The false human story told by many progressives and conservatives alike in the years since Reagan, a story built…

  • Jesus and the Powers, Part 8

    The final chapters in the book, Jesus and the Powers, are a struggle for me. Chapter 7 is the struggle. Chapter 8 is the summary. The fact of the matter, for Wright and Bird, is that government of some form is necessary. I can’t disagree. For all the shouting people do about corrupt government (on the “right” or the “left”),…

  • Jesus and the Powers, Part 7

    There are governments to resist. We wrestle with the need to submit to a point and then how to resist when there are violations of conscience and crossing allegiances, but then there is a need to understand there are things to resist. The how is tricky, and it takes the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit. This isn’t about…

  • Jesus and the Powers, Part 6

    It’s been a week without writing mainly because I’ve been absorbing the political shooting from last week and then seeing how it might play out in the Republican National Convention. Along with that was preparation for this coming week’s book study group on Jesus and the Powers. It’s been a week of absorbing and reflecting.