I became involved in a discussion at Rod Dreher’s blog. He was discussing the type of cultural pressure that Christians will face over the next few years. It is a continuing theme for him and one in which I believe him to be right. It is one of the reasons why I am an advocate for building the Christian community. We will need that community to deal with the coming post-Christian society. There is a type of response that some... Read more
I have spent a good deal of time criticizing conservative Christians about their support of President Trump and their role in helping him get elected. Even in the few months I have been writing Shattering Paradigms I have criticized the support of conservative Christians’ support of Trump again, again, and again. I believe it to be appropriate to be more critical of our own in-group than of others. But that does not mean we should be silent about the shortcomings... Read more
There was a case going around concerning the all-comers policy at the University of Iowa. All-comers policies are policies that require organizations to open up their leadership to members of different races, sexes and religious preferences. They have generally been used to drive Christian groups off the campuses of colleges and universities (rarely are they enforced against non-Christian groups). As such, the policy was being used to pressure a Christian organization. However an injunction has been put on the university... Read more
I had the pleasure last week of attending a seminar on the “Threats to Academic Freedom and Free Speech” in Washington DC. It was a lively exchange between professors and lawyers from some key free speech institutions (ACLU, FIRE and ALEC). During the exchange I brought up a point I would like to discuss because it reminds us about the importance of free speech. My point begins like this. Until last year, when we talked about identity politics we would... Read more
An interesting thing happened after I posted last week about how anger helped to create the Trump presidency. Some of my non-leftist academic friends contacted me on my facebook page, and confirmed that they were angry. They informed me that they had a right to be angry as well. I cannot say they are wrong about that. Non-leftist academics have been treated like second class citizens in academia, and that treatment has generated a great deal of anger. Take for... Read more
Much of this is tied to the disrespect that many of Trump voters perceive. They are tired of being told that they do not know their own interest, or that they are bigots for not accepting the latest cultural trend. Read more
Research indicates that religious individuals have more capacity to forgive than non-religious individuals. This difference is not an accident. Read more
We do not have to let evangelicalism be tied to Trump. We do not have to let it be tied to highly toxic elements of political conservatism. Read more
Conservative Protestant schools should offer something that students cannot get elsewhere. Read more
Hate speech is not illegal, and it cannot become illegal. Trust me that when it is illegal that the definition of hate speech will grow. Read more
Shattering Paradigms
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