Better to find allies and change the culture than sell your soul in an effort to control others’ behavior
Category Archives: Faith and politics
One Ring to Bind Them All: Conservative Christians and the Theocratic Impulse
For conservative White Christians in the USA, theocracy is the Ring of Power, and abortion is their reason for wanting to use it. But it has its own purposes.
All day long (Romans 10:21)
“ALL DAY LONG I HAVE HELD OUT MY HANDS TO A DISOBEDIENT AND OBSTINATE PEOPLE.” —Romans 10:21, citing Isaiah 65:2 How to feel about the recalcitrant? (Here is just another lesson in the long course in imitatio Dei that is the Christian life.) They just don’t get it. Are they incapable of understanding? Do theyContinue reading “All day long (Romans 10:21)”
The President and the Fourth
July 4 is not about celebrating the president, but it’s good to have a president who understands and supports the values that July 4 celebrates.
On observing July 4 as an American Christian
When the Fourth of July falls on a Sunday, Christians need to be careful about how they relate patriotism and worship.
Defining human existence (Psalm 139)
To be is to be known by God. God’s omniscience is knowledge not only of everything but of everyone. There is no one whom God does not know. My existence resides in the fact that God knows me. My identity is this: I am who God knows that I am. And since God speaks, andContinue reading “Defining human existence (Psalm 139)”
Fifty ways to say “there is no God” (riffing on Psalm 14)
We have so many elaborate ways of saying “There is no God” in our hearts without saying it out loud. We are such fools.
The South has risen again
Once again Heather Cox Richardson has compared current developments in US governance to nineteenth-century antecedents, with concerning results. See her post for June 22. She has been doing this well for many months now. I recommend her 2020 book How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the SoulContinue reading “The South has risen again”
The point of Psalm 139
The point of Psalm 139 is not theological speculation, and certainly not prooftexting for contemporary partisan politics, but to move me to desire to seek God’s leading.
Nation-state myth and the Kingdom of God; or patriotism and salvation history
If we are Christian, the story that we tell about our nation will be compatible with and subordinate to the story that God is writing in the history of salvation.
