As I continue to come across Edwards’ writings — his Faithful Narrative is part of the reader for American Heritage at Hillsdale College — I continue to be amazed at the Northampton pastor’s broad appeal, even down to the “Jonathan Edwards is my homeboy” T-shirts. Granted, Edwards has much to admire. The thought of a… Read More→
In the light of Newt Gingrich’s recent surge in the polls, let’s see how the fortunes of the Religious Right are developing: A weak week ago Mitt Romney was leading in the polls and some even talked about his sowing up the nomination after South Carolina and Florida. Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife did an interview this… Read More→
You would think that religious historians would know better. Better in this case is understanding faith (of most varieties) to be fantastic since it involves truths and realities that cannot be seen and that divide rather than unite human beings. From this perspective, even the most orthodox of Christian affirmations look foolish and even irrational.… Read More→
Protestant athletes are in the news — Tim Tebow, of Bible-verse eyeblack fame, and David Freese of World Series heroism (thanks to our D.C. correspondent). The reasons for the attention to these athletes say a lot about the differences between evangelicalism and confessional Protestantism. Practically anyone who watches sports knows that Tebow is a Christian… Read More→
As Zrim has already indicated, pronunciations matter. If you say the word evangelical with a long e in the first syllable, as in “egads,” then according to popular wisdom you are one, that is, a born-again Protestant. If you pronounce it with the short e in “whatever,” then you aren’t ehvangelical. The same goes for… Read More→
Those shrieks you hear this morning are coming from Michigan where in the burgs of Grand Rapids and Hillsdale, author and editors are bemoaning the news that Sarah Palin is not going to run for the presidency. One of the first reviews of From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin at Amazon asserts that the book… Read More→
Worldviews are overrated. Intuition matters. At least, that’s the impression readers may take away from a thoughtful review of a new book on philanthropy by Jeff Cain, a former colleague and now the co-founder of American Philanthropic. The book in question is Do More Than Give: The Six Practices of Donors Who Change the World,… Read More→
The governor of Oregon and U.S. Senator, Mark Hatfield, died last Sunday. For many evangelicals born after 1970, Hatfield’s name is obscure. But during the 1960s and 1970s he was a model for evangelical political engagement. Only after the rise of the Moral Majority under Jerry Falwell and the Reagan Revolution did Hatfield’s brand of… Read More→
I participated yesterday in my first interview on my new book (all about me, remember), From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin, yesterday on a local Detroit Christian radio station. The host was gracious but unfortunately we talked much less about the book than about his and my own differences over theology and politics. One take-away… Read More→
Wishing Evangelicals Would Leave Politics Alone
Before all of the anti-dualists and despisers of otherworldliness get riled up, the point of this post is not for evangelicals or any kind of Christian to abdicate their duties as citizens. Instead, it is that injecting religion into politics has neither helped politics nor aided religion. Two recent confirmations of this come from Mikelmann’s… Read More→