Do Christians Really Support Religious Liberty (part two)?

Last updated on: June 23, 2016 at 2:56 pm By D. G. Hart

The first of this two-part series raised questions about an understanding of religion that so stresses morality as to undermine personal liberty. If Christians want the freedom to express their religious convictions in public life, and if those religious convictions include moral norms that prevent the liberties of other citizens, then someone can well ask whether Christians support religious liberty but only for the people with the correct morality. A second difficulty for Christian advocacy of religious liberty relates again... Read more

Do Christians Really Support Religious Liberty (part one)?

Last updated on: June 21, 2016 at 2:34 pm By D. G. Hart

Russell Moore’s recent defense of religious freedom for Muslim Americans reassured many: Does religious liberty apply to non-Christian religions? Someone told me this week that he had seen a Baptist writer question whether Muslim Americans qualify for religious liberty “benefits.” Hearing that was honestly surprising, in that it would represent a direct contradiction of our confessional document and all of its predecessors. But beyond this there’s a broader question that’s important to consider: must a person who believes Jesus Christ... Read more

Make America Great Again

Last updated on: June 16, 2016 at 3:48 pm By D. G. Hart

Walter McDougal explains what — trigger warning — the Founders understood by American greatness: When the Founders casually boasted that America was or would become a great empire, what they had in mind was not even remotely akin to the global alliances and foreign military deployments the United States has engaged in since 1941. The word empire meant one of three things in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The obvious first meaning was autocratic rule by a capricious emperor... Read more

So Far Everyone Agrees on Orlando as the Place

Last updated on: June 15, 2016 at 12:48 pm By D. G. Hart

From 1847 to 1857 if we believe Wikipedia, the City of Orlando was known as Jernigan, after the original settler of the area, Aaron Jernigan. No one calls Orlando Jernigan today. In 1916 if a shooting had happened in an Orlando bar, reporters would have likely called those people Americans, or maybe fruit pickers or orange grove owners since the town then was the hub of the local orange growing industry. Today the options for journalists are primarily gay or... Read more

Why Denominations Matter

Last updated on: June 10, 2016 at 12:13 pm By D. G. Hart

The opera may be over when the fat lady sings, but for denominations it’s time to meet for national assemblies when the NBA and NHL reach the final round of playoffs. The United Methodists made lots of news recently over their votes on gay marriage and abortion — votes which may have inappropriately preceded the Warriors and Cavaliers series. But lots of other denominations are gathering to deliberate church business — reports from missionaries, spread sheets on revenues and expenses,... Read more

Evangelicals Have Painted Themselves Morally Into the Corner

Last updated on: June 8, 2016 at 3:44 pm By D. G. Hart

Michael Gerson joins the chorus of evangelicals who repudiate Donald Trump: Support for Trump involves a massive, disorienting shift, especially given the reputation of the religious right. It is, well, unexpected for evangelicals to endorse a political figure who has engaged in creepy sex talk on the radio, boasted about his extramarital affairs, made a fortune from gambling and bragged about his endowment on national television. But the tension runs much deeper. Evangelical Christians are not merely choosing a certain... Read more

All Ages After the Fall Are Dark

Last updated on: June 2, 2016 at 11:42 am By D. G. Hart

Rodney Stark begins his chapter on the Dark Ages with an important observation: “For many Western intellectuals, the Fall does not refer to the fate of Adam and Eve, but to the fate of civilization after the collapse of Rome.” Stark goes on to argue that the idea of the medieval era being a time of superstition and ignorance does not measure up to close or even remote scrutiny. It is in fact more the creation of Renaissance and Enlightenment... Read more

A Myth Destroyed Is Not History Understood

Last updated on: May 31, 2016 at 12:12 pm By D. G. Hart

Rodney Stark’s new book, Bearing False Witness, a volume that debunks Protestant myths (some of the Jack Chick variety) about Roman Catholicism, begins with anti-Semitism. To his credit, he starts the first chapter with a quotation from one of his early books: “For centuries, persecution of Jews was justified in the name of God.” Stark goes on to explain why he was wrong along with those of many received views about Judaism and Christendom. One of the arresting parts of... Read more

Socialized Theological Education

Last updated on: May 27, 2016 at 12:04 pm By D. G. Hart

News that Andover Newton Seminary is moving to Yale Divinity School (the theological world’s version of mergers and acquisitions) brings to mind the limits of the United States free market in religion. Of course, since Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si, folks attentive to religious news have heard a fair amount about the failings if not immorality of global capitalism. And this is hardly a new theme for American Protestants since the mainline churches, thanks to their heritage of the Social... Read more

Growing Up Fundamentalist Was Not All Bad

Last updated on: May 24, 2016 at 3:25 pm By D. G. Hart

Over at Mere Orthodoxy, Jake Meador has republished an essay that Matthew Lee Anderson wrote back in 2009 about evangelical millennials. As I watch some young evangelicals convert to Roman Catholicism, I’ve wondered about the valuable effects of growing up fundamentalist. Part of what that involved was never taking someone’s Christian profession for granted. “They may say they follow Christ,” my parents warned, “but do they really?” Of course, evangelicals going back to the Great Pretty Good Awakening have worried... Read more