"You who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey!" Read more
"You who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey!" Read more
That strange name and the silly ideas it suggested made me realize for the first time how noir Calvinist theology can be. Maybe it's the fatalism. Maybe it's the way it regards women as either damsels in distress or femmes fatale. But they go together well. Some call it predestination, some call it fate. Either way, Mac, your goose is cooked. Read more
Today’s protest anthem and open thread comes courtesy of Billy Bragg. “If you’ve got a blacklist, I want to be on it. …” Read more
You remember Steve Guttenberg in Season 2 of Veronica Mars? He played Woody Goodman, the millionaire with a dark secret who became mayor of Neptune. This is a story about Woody Goodman, but with a different dark secret. And it's not really about Woody, or Neptune. It would make a heck of a TV show, but a lousy reality. Read more
The idea of a papal Antichrist endures because while premillennial dispensationalists insist that the book of Revelation has nothing to do with the Roman Empire of the time when it was written, they still have to account for why Rome plays such a prominent role in the Apocalypse. The idea also endures because many PMDs are the sort of American fundamentalists who really don’t like Catholics. Read more
Wherein I'm not confident that the makers of "Kong: Skull Island" really understand the dynamics of ecology, evolution, or island biogeography. And speaking of insular dwarfism, here are some recent stories about the strange priorities and disastrous economic effects of anti-immigrant Trumpism. Read more
It's not quite the right word or the right category. The night had been difficult, unpleasant and uncomfortable -- none of the things you're signing up for if you're looking for a night of fun. Pose an open-ended question in which I were asked to provide a description of that evening and I would never have reached for the word "fun." Nor would Mick, or Charlie, or the nurse at Jeff. "Fun" seems reductive and dismissive, like some inconsequential amusement or time-killing diversion. Read more
Wacky fringe broadcaster Rick Wiles here is simply saying the quiet parts loud. He's saying directly what the rest of white evangelical culture says indirectly -- what that culture believes, and what it requires its members to believe. What Wiles offers is a distillation of that belief -- the central, bedrock foundation of contemporary white evangelicalism -- in its starkest form. Read more
The "10/40 Window" used to be a big deal in mission conferences at white evangelical churches. Nowadays, white evangelicals seem to view these countries differently. The "10/40 Window" is the region from which white evangelicals want to ban refugees and immigrants. It's the region white evangelicals want their chosen president to carpet bomb, invade, and steal oil from. Read more
"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God." Read more
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