The transition from Billy Graham to his son Franklin Graham is a microcosm of the past 40 years of white evangelical Christianity in America. For Billy, the primary thing was always proclamation evangelism. That was the core of his identity. For Franklin, the primary thing is always the culture wars -- anti-feminism, white supremacy, and the lucrative demonizing of the Other. That is the core of his identity. Read more
The male leaders of the Roman Catholic Church are now mumbling about maybe, some day, ending the late-developing innovation of a ban on women deacons. We can't talk about that without talking about Paul's first-century letter to the church in Rome, which was carried by a woman deacon and greets, by name, a long list of women leaders in the church. Also: Londoners get to vote; all change is incremental; a sexual predator is also a financial predator; and I am really old. Read more
want us to read Billings' surprisingly inaccurate predictions as unerringly accurate. The sense one gets from this passage is that the LaHaye and Jenkins are using Billings' video message to rewrite the account of the previous 200 pages, to fill in or even change the details of events we've already read about. It's a bit like listening to someone botch the telling of a long joke, when they realize halfway through that they've left out essential details and they start backtracking and correcting themselves. Read more
The once mostly Catholic phenomenon of congressional "pro-life Democrats" ended due to the horror of the clergy abuse scandal. Thus nowadays, most "pro-life Democrats" are really blue dogs -- "social conservatives" who have found other, more effective, ways of signaling that social conservatism and all that it entails. Read more
Character actor William Schallert found something he loved to do, he got good at it, and he never retired, even after nearly 70 years. May you be so blessed. Also: Nature is really strange; a searchable database of the sleazy rich; and Bartolo's shot heard 'round the world. Read more
Elias Chacour, Barack Obama, Liz Plank, Rebecca Solnit and 111 United Methodist clergy and candidates discuss friends and enemies, truth and fiction, hope and cynicism. There may be a theme here. Read more
Rod Dreher's story never happened. The Bad Jackie of the tough Texas suburbs -- if any such person really exists -- is making stuff up. And she's so focused on making her story shocking that she forgot to make any of it plausible. But the question isn't whether Dreher is deliberately lying or just credulously bearing false witness against his neighbors. The question is WHY Rod Dreher so desperately wishes that fantasies like this story were true. Read more
Verna and Buck work together at a weekly news magazine, and their entire conversation here is premised on the idea that the international manhunt for renegade rabbi Tsion Ben-Judah is the top story in world news for the past week. That would seem absurd even if the past week had been a slow affair, news-wise, but that week actually has included things like the Global Potentate's all-out nuclear war against his own Global Community, with the ensuing destruction of New York, London and Chicago. Read more
This weekend we went to a wedding at the Lazaretto Ballroom, a lovely site adjacent to a remarkable bit of American history. Essington, it turns out, isn't just the site of long-term parking for the Philadelphia Airport. It's also where Ellis Island was before there was ever such a thing as Ellis Island. Read more
"The Lord is good, a stronghold on a day of trouble; he protects those who take refuge in him." Read more
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