Disaffected evangelicals sometimes swim the Tiber, going over to Rome. Others swim the Bosporous, to Constantinople and Eastern Orthodoxy. But, according to an article at RealClear Religion, they would do better to swim the Mississippi, to the St. Louis-based Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
Americans are extremely polarized politically. But this is not just a matter of ideology. Advocates of both parties fear each other, even hate each other. Both sides do little with reasoning or evidence; rather, they try to raise the passions of voters. Ours is now a politics of feelings. Jonathan Rauch sees this as a reversion away from democracy back to tribalism.
A majority of Americans (51%) want to revise the Bill of Right's guarantee of Freedom of Speech to allow for the prohibition of "hate speech." Other polls show that Americans are disenchanted with other of their Constitutional rights. What happens in a Democracy when the people themselves repudiate their rights and liberties?
Our problem is not just that we have disagreements, but that we no longer have a common frame of reference that could allow us to resolve our disagreements.
The major Democratic presidential candidates may sound like secularists, but they all have specific church or religious affiliations: five belong to mainline liberal Protestant denominations; two are members of Black Baptist churches; three are Catholics; one is Jewish; and one is Hindu.
There is a movement to ascribe "rights" to nature--rivers, trees, mountains, etc.--to provide legal grounds to protect them. But both side of the environmental debates often forget that human beings are part of nature too. Which is the basis of "natural rights" and "natural law."
In "multi-site" churches, a congregation has multiple "campuses," sometimes spread across the country, all of which are under one pastor, who preaches to all of the locations via video. But how does this model accord with the vocation of ministry and the theology of preaching?
In this strange presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton has accused candidate Tulsi Gabbard of being a Russian asset, Elizabeth Warren's message misfires, Democrats are ignoring conservative and moderates who disapprove of Trump, and Joe Biden is still leading after all.
President Trump has brokered a ceasefire in Turkey's incursion into Syria against the Kurds. According to the terms, Turkey will halt, Kurds will withdraw 20 miles from the border, whereupon Turkish operations will cease.
Totalitarianism is the belief that the government should control the totality of human life. Communists and Nazis, for all their differences, both embraced totalitarianism. The totalitarian impulse can also exist in a Democracy, and is increasingly evident in the United States.
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