(Credit: Will Clayton, Flickr Creative Commons) I turn 35 in a little over a week or so. It feels a lot weirder to write that than it does to live it. Almost 35 isn’t quite the depressing hellscape I envisioned when I was 16. Don’t get me wrong. Waking up everyday at 6AM, getting fat, and going bald were all a part of my teenage apocalyptic nightmares and they have come to fruition, but now I can eat ice cream... Read more

(Credit: James Marvin Phelps, Flickr Creative Commons) Having spent my entire life in the South, I quickly learned something about many of my fellow lifelong Southerners that I didn’t realize until I moved to New England several years ago. Many lifelong Southerners have no sense of New England geography. How do I know? Because any time a tragedy occurred in, say, Boston or New York (which I know isn’t New England, but stay with me here), I immediately received texts,... Read more

(Twitter screenshot) As millions of Americans fight for survival on the island of Puerto Rico, Donald Trump continues to stir racial animosity stateside. Not because he actually cares about the flag or the anthem or even patriotism. All Donald Trump cares about is Donald Trump and he (rightly) sees an easy way to score cheap political points by exploiting racial tensions for his own gain. Trump correctly recognizes that patriotism is our national religion and the flag and the anthem... Read more

(Screengrab) This morning on Fox & Friends, a show that was once quite literally a running gag on Saturday Night Live, Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress had this to say about the Trump administration’s immigration policy and whether or not Christians should support it… “I mean, Jesus said we’re to love our neighbors as ourselves and that our neighbors are not just people like us, but people different than us,” Jeffress said. “But while Christian compassion is one consideration, it’s not... Read more

(Credit: Alborzshawn, Flickr Creative Commons) Last week, the Council on Biblical Manhood & Womanhood released their now infamous Nashville Statement condemning not just the LGBT community as sinners, but their allies as well. According to the signers of the Nashville Statement, in drawing this theological line in the sand, they were simply affirming a central, non-negotionable tenet of the Christian faith. However, as the biblical scholars in this article explain, that is simply not true. Nevertheless, the evil they intended... Read more

(Screengrab) By now, you’ve surely heard about the so-called Nashville Statement as well as the surge of opposition it created in its wake. You probably weren’t surprised when the signers of the Nashville Statement refused to either back down from Article X’s damnation of anyone who disagrees with them or apologize for the obscenely tone-deaf timing of the document’s release. And you may be thinking to yourself, “I can’t quite put my finger on it, but this feels like deja... Read more

(Source: Twitter) In the wake of Donald Trump’s defense of neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, VA, there has been such a mass exodus of advisors, that his Manufacturing Council, Strategy & Policy Forum, and Arts Commission have all been disbanded. Noticeably absent from that exodus, have been members of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board. In fact, only 1 then current members has resigned, while the rest have either refused to publicly condemn Trump’s comments or have brazenly defended them. Among... Read more

(Credit: Wikipedia) Last weekend, white supremacists, Klan members, neo-Nazis,  and other “very fine people,” carried their tiki torches across the University of Virginia campus and rallied around a statue of Robert E. Lee in protest of its removal. In the wake of that march and the violence that followed the next day, there has been rapidly growing demand from the public that all Confederate memorials be removed immediately from public spaces. As a historian, I have to respectably disagree with... Read more

(Credit: Twitter) This afternoon, Donald Trump announced he was disbanding his Manufacturing Council after several of the CEOs on the Council resigned en mass following his unapologetic defense of the white supremacists and neo-Nazis whose violent racism and hatred was on full display over the weekend in Charlottesville, VA. Curiously, no one on Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board has followed suit. However, they haven’t all remained silent. In fact, a few have even thrown their support behind Trump’s defense of the... Read more

(Credit: Paul Sableman, Flickr Creative Commons) I’m a big Atlanta Braves fan. Have been since I was 9 years old. Like, I’m the kid who was so distraught after they lost the ’92 World Series that I couldn’t go to school the next day. I fully recognize that is completely ridiculous, but I’m also in no way embarrassed by that fact. So, here we are. Anyway, needless to say, when the Braves opened up their new (and admittedly completely unnecessary)... Read more