Events like this inevitably cause some folks to cling more tightly to the sword, reciting again that passage from Romans 13 and insisting that this is why the authority of the sword was instituted by God and not wielded in vain. For me, events like this send me back to the verse that prefaces that passage, reminding me that it is not only wise, but necessary: Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Read more
For social scientists like Jones, "white evangelical" is a demographic category classifying religious and ethnic identity. But his findings demonstrate, again and again, that white Christianity is also something else. It is not simply the space on some Venn diagram where adherents of Christianity and people of a particular ethnic group overlap. "White Christian" and "white evangelical" are themselves unique religious categories -- distinct theologies. Read more
Romans 13:1-7 is a classic text in Christian political thought, the place where Paul suggests that government is established by God as "a servant for good" and "does not bear the sword in vain." The disagreement among Christian readers of this text isn't focused on the "instituted by God" bits, but rather on what Paul says about the temporal source of power and legitimacy for these "authorities." Some Christians argue that this source of power and legitimacy is "the sword." Others of us disagree: We say it is "the good." Read more
A badge, by itself, can mean something. A badge accompanying a gun becomes just flair and decoration. American police demonstrate this themselves constantly. When their authority is questioned, they don't reach for their badge, but for what they regard as the source of that authority. And that isn't their badge. This is a concession on their part that the badge is not meaningful to them. And if it is not meaningful to them, there is little reason that it should be meaningful to anyone else. Read more
It's never that easy when identity is at stake. Identity means survival is at stake. It's safer to cling to a lie -- even if we know it's a lie -- than to allow the destruction of who and what it is that we've always believed ourselves to be. Read more
Sonia Sotomayor on lawless police; Ben Moberg on Orlando; Loretta Lynch on being seen; Alex Massie on the consequences of hateful rhetoric; and Carvell Wallace on the "Negro Motorist Green Book" and the meaning of home. Read more
The surest way to lose at politics is to refuse to participate in it because you're above it all. Refusing to sully yourself with the ugly business of compromise and get-what-you-can incremental change doesn't mean you'll have pure, clean hands when the revolution comes. It means the other guy wins, big time, because nobody is playing against him. Read more
Restaurants probably took a bit of a hit from the Rapture -- what with there now being 2 billion or so fewer potential customers. Chuck E. Cheese and other such places catering to children would, of course, be out of business for good. (It probably also would be best, post-Rapture, for restaurants to remove the kids' pages from their menus, as the uncontrolled sobbing they would likely provoke could be distracting to the other diners.) Read more
If you want to be beloved by white evangelicals, then, your best bet is to never become one of them. Stay an outsider, but occasionally say things about God that they can celebrate and feel affirmed by. Smile in their direction, but from a distance. (See, for example: Reagan, Ronald.) Read more
Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins frame this whole conversation as some steely contest of nerves -- a high-stakes negotiation, a struggle for dominance, and an exercise in brinksmanship, with Buck and Verna staring one another down to see who blinks first. That's probably not the best way to think about evangelism. Read more
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