Here is my recipe for growing a church. It is based on my own observations all over the U.S. First, make your church nondenominational; hide its denominational affiliation or make sure it doesn’t have one. (I have searched many “plain label churches”) for their denominational affiliations and found them on their web sites—often very well hidden.) Second, give your church a name that will sound good, positive, helpful, to secular people, even if the name tells absolutely nothing about the... Read more

Another Evangelical Anxiety My recent post here was about white American evangelical anxieties of the 1950s through at least the 1970s. My thesis is that these anxieties of the past entered into white American evangelical DNA and are still there even if not as clearly recognized or expressed as such. Another white American evangelical anxiety that I clearly remember was fear of “one world government.” This was supported by the United Nations and the incipient European Union as well as... Read more

Evangelical Anxieties I grew up “in the thick of” white American evangelical Christianity in the 1950s into the 1970s and have always kept an eye on it. I have witnessed many changes there. Like others, I often wonder what has happened in white American evangelicalism. My mind automatically goes back to how I experienced it when young In those days, most white American evangelicals had many anxieties. One was that many of the older people remembered a time when American... Read more

Jesus and the “Aliens” Recently, I posted here a long list of Old Testament scripture passages in which God commands the Hebrew people to treat “aliens” (foreigners, strangers) in the land (among them) with justice and compassion. As expected, some people objected that these OT commandments do not necessarily apply to people today, here, in America. They pointed out that some OT commandments are clearly not applicable to us, here, today. For existence, passages about slaves. Some asked me for... Read more

Good Education What is “good education?” Of course, like so many words, “education” has different meanings. Here I am talking about American public and private education—K through 12 and beyond. When I was taking driver’s training in my high school, 7:00 AM half awake, I learned one principle: Take the broad view. That meant, as we all were taught many times, when driving keep your eyes up and on the road ahead and what surrounds it. Don’t stare down at... Read more

Here I return to discussion of theologian Adam Kotsko’s book Neoliberalism’s Demons: The Political Theology of Late Capital with Chapter 4 “This Present Darkness.” If you have read the chapter, feel free to comment. If not, you may ask a question. Two things jumped out of me from this chapter—the chapter title and the title of one of its sections. “This Present Darkness,” of course, is the title of Frank Peretti’s bombshell best seller fictional book about Satan and demons... Read more

By many accounts, Adolf Hitler was a nice man. I have read many books about Hitler and watched many documentaries about him, including first-hand accounts of him as a private person. His personal secretaries and servants, his subordinates, people who visited him—many of them talked about what a nice person he was. He was nice to children and animals. He was a good conversationalist. He donated money to people in need. He paid his underlings well. He was, by most... Read more

Lately I have been reviewing some old readings, ones I read and studied years ago: Hegel, Barth, and Robert Jenson. I have mentioned here before how Jenson’s book “God After God: The God of the Past and the Future As Seen In the Work of Karl Barth” (1969) launched my theological career. Probably the single most influential book of theology in my life. I was privileged to know Jenson much later as he and Carl Braaten invited me to participate... Read more

Here I continue discussion of the book Neoliberalism’s Demons: The Political Theology of Late Capital by Adam Kotsko. Now I take up Chapter 3: Neoliberalism’s Demons (title of both the book and the chapter). If you have read the chapter, feel free to comment. If not, feel free to ask a question. Much of this chapter is taken up with discussion of Christian theology which is interesting, of course, but not especially pertinent to the overall thesis of the book... Read more