How Much Influence Do Evangelicals Have in American Politics?

Last updated on: August 31, 2020 at 2:54 pm By Kermit Zarley

Evangelicals had a lot to do with putting Donald Trump in the White House. PEW Research Center exit polling in the 2016 presidential election revealed that 81% of Evangelicals who voted for president voted for Trump. Evangelicals make up about 27% of U.S. voters. President Trump has delivered what Evangelicals wanted most–conservative judges, with two being put on the Supreme Court during Trump’s tenure as president. Evangelicals just haven’t–and I doubt they ever will–get their other main desire, which is... Read more

Jon Rahm Wins BMW Championship

Last updated on: August 30, 2020 at 9:05 pm By Kermit Zarley

Jon Rahm holed a 66-foot putt for a birdie on the sole extra hole of a playoff with Dustin Johnson to win the BMW Championship today. Minutes prior, Johnson, playing in the last group, holed a 32-foot putt for a birdie on the last hole of regulation play to force the playoff with Rahm. That sequence had to be the most thrilling on the PGA Tour I’ve ever seen. You couldn’t really appreciate it unless you saw how both putts... Read more

Don’t Forget Homero Blancas’ 55

Last updated on: August 29, 2020 at 8:25 pm By Kermit Zarley

It has been reported in some golf publications this week–including Golf and Golfweek–that Alexander Hughes recently shot a 55 on an 18-hole public golf course, South Lakes Golf Course, in Jenks, Oklahoma, and that it tied a previous 55 shot by Australian Rhein Gibson at River Oaks Golf Club in Edmond, Oklahoma. Both publications say Gibson held the record alone and that this is attested in the Guinness Book of World Records. But Homero Blancas shot 55 on August 19,... Read more

Johnson and Matsuyama Lead BMW Championship

Last updated on: August 29, 2020 at 6:46 pm By Kermit Zarley

Dustin Johnson is still on a roll after winning last week on the PGA Tour by a whopping eleven strokes. After today’s third round in the BMW Championship, he is tied for first place with Hideki Matsuyama with a one-under, par 54-hole total of 209. They are playing at Olympia Fields North Course in Illinois, just outside of Chicago. This high scoring with good weather shows how difficult that golf course is. This tournament used to be the Western Open... Read more

Falwell’s Fall from Grace

Last updated on: August 25, 2020 at 11:53 pm By Kermit Zarley

Reuter’s first reported today that Jerry Falwell Jr., the president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, along with his wife Becki, has been involved in a sexual scandal, and because of it he resigned his presidency this evening. It is a salacious, depressing story about an evangelical leader that I’d rather not even report. Giancarlo Granda, a 29-year old post-graduate of Georgetown University, has admitted to having an eight-year affair with Falwell’s wife Becki of which Jerry not only approved... Read more

Dustin Johnson Wins Northern Trust

Last updated on: August 23, 2020 at 8:36 pm By Kermit Zarley

Dustin Johnson did just like the weather and blew away the field today by shooting an eight-under par 63 at TPC Boston to win The Northern Trust by a whopping eleven strokes for his 22nd victory on the PGA Tour. He also became #1 in World Rankings and now leads the FedEx Cup. Harris English finished a distant second place. Johnson’s 72-hole total of 254 was only one stroke shy of the all time lowest 72-hole score ever shot on... Read more

Dustin Johnson Leads Northern Trust by Five

Last updated on: August 22, 2020 at 4:04 pm By Kermit Zarley

Dustin Johnson continued his stellar play at the PGA Tour’s Northern Trust golf tournament near Boston today by a shooting 6-under par 65 to increase his lead to five strokes, at 22-under par, over Scottie Scheffler and Harris English, who are at 17-under par. Johnson birdied the par-three 17th hole and then canned a 40-foot eagle putt on the par-five 18th hole without even breaking a smile, as if it was just a matter-of-fact. If Johnson can keep up his... Read more

Dustin Johnson Leads Northern Trust

Last updated on: August 22, 2020 at 3:51 pm By Kermit Zarley

Long-hitting Dustin Johnson moved into the lead again this week, after leading the PGA Championship two weeks ago in San Francisco. And in doing so today, he was part of new history-making on the PGA Tour. Rookie Scottie Scheffler and Dustin Johnson shot 59 and 60, respectively, today on the par 71 TPC Boston golf course in Norton, Massachusetts. It was the two lowest scores that two players have ever shot on the same day in a PGA Tour tournament.... Read more

Will COVID-19 Help Sink Communism in China?

Last updated on: August 20, 2020 at 11:41 pm By Kermit Zarley

When I was in college, many moons ago, I had a charismatic, likable, political science professor who repeatedly and adamantly proclaimed that communism was destined to fail because it was a non-transparent system, unlike how democracy usually works. At that time, 1961, the U.S. and the communistic Soviet Union–which had its roots in the Russian Revolution by the Bolshevik Party in 1917–were getting seriously involved against each other in the Cold War, which went on for decades. And China had... Read more

Overpopulation?

Last updated on: August 18, 2020 at 12:19 pm By Kermit Zarley

The beginning of the Bible says (NRSV), “God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiple, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1.27-28). Bible readers generally have understood this pronouncement as a universal command that applies in a general sense to all of future humankind. This is certainly how religious Jews have understood it down... Read more