A true story. Some years ago I was invited to serve on a community task force to work with the local school district. This was in suburban Minnesota (Twin Cities). At the time I was teaching at Bethel College, a broadly evangelical liberal arts Baptist college. The US Supreme Court had recently ruled that public schools could teach “community values”—beyond merely “values clarification.” The school district invited me and about twenty-five other “community leaders” to advise them about “community values.”... Read more

Whether “Christendom” is necessarily and always bad depends on what it means. Anyway, that is my opinion. I know others will disagree. So what does “Christendom” mean? Well, there is no universally agreed on definition. Sure, there are dictionary definitions, but scholarly and popular use do not always agree with dictionaries. Christendom is a social and cultural situation in which Christianity, in some form or other, forms the “glue” that holds society and culture together. But that “glue” can be... Read more

Here I begin discussion of a new book: Living Out of Control: Political and Personal Faith in Waning Christendom by Rodney Clapp (Fortress Press, 2025). I introduced the book here a little over a week ago (May, 2025). Rodney is a good friend and a gentleman, a Christian, and a scholar. Here I will describe Chapter One: After Christendom or Waning Christendom? And I invite those who have read it to comment. Others may ask questions. According to Clapp (from... Read more

What Is “Knowledge?” I have discussed here before my views about truth, certainty, and doubt. I will now tackle “knowledge.” What counts as knowledge? When can I claim that I know something? The question has interested philosophers for centuries and millennia. It’s a crucial aspect of the branch of philosophy called “epistemology.” I once worked for an evangelist who often said, “I know that I know that I know.” That was his answer to any question about what he claimed... Read more

  Christian Thoughts about Doubt Frederick Buechner famously wrote that “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” Several Christian writers have extolled the virtues of doubt—even for Christian living. Two of them are the great English Methodist pastor and theologian Leslie Weatherhead in The Christian Agnostic (1965) and Gregory Boyd in The Benefit of the Doubt (2013). (I have reviewed Boyd’s book here earlier.) Paul Tillich, of course, famously claimed that doubt... Read more

Beginning on Monday, May 19 I will launch a new book discussion here. The chosen book is Living Out of Control: Political and Personal Faith in Waning Christendom by theologian Rodney Clapp (Fortress Press, 2025). It’s a relatively small book (135 pages) and easy to read. It packs a punch—about white American Christian nationalism. According to the publisher’s “blurb” “the book depicts how we may now live as Christians without the reassertion of Christendom.” You should receive the book quickly... Read more

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 websites—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 church.... 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