Category Archives: Politics

Pay your democracy tax: support newspapers

I delivered the Richmond Times-Dispatch to two routes in my hometown by bicycle six days a week throughout my middle school and high school years. After I added the second route my father insisted on driving me around the route in the ’63 Fairlane on Sundays and when the weather was horrible. I was upContinue reading “Pay your democracy tax: support newspapers”

January 6, Angela Rigas, and the way forward

Yale historian Timothy Snyder has posted a 15-fact summary of the January 6 committee’s report. You should stop now and read it if you have not already. I said yesterday (in a FaceBook post) that no one can be surprised by continuing revelations of Trump’s misdeeds. Anyone with clear moral vision knew what Trump was,Continue reading “January 6, Angela Rigas, and the way forward”

CRT in the textbooks! (not)

Notes on the struggle with false accusations (CRT!) in one West Michigan community’s conversation about social studies curriculum.

Defend institutions

OK, you want to know why I’m running for school board? I’m not lacking things to do with my time. I am not bored. My day job in academic book publishing is endlessly fascinating and demanding, and numerous prospective authors (I am chagrined to admit) could tell you that all my evenings and weekends couldContinue reading “Defend institutions”

Trump-Russia is not a hoax

If you are not yet reading Heather Cox Richardson’s daily Letters from an American—why not? I am an ordinary US citizen with the education of a theologian, biblical scholar, and pastor, and I work as a religious book publisher. My interests in current American politics are theological, ecclesial, pastoral. Heather Cox Richardson is a historyContinue reading “Trump-Russia is not a hoax”

How COVID-19 has sorted us out

Thomas Paine wrote: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” The trials of the American Revolution would distinguish the “summer soldier and the sunshine patriot” for the true patriot. Well, any crisis tries the souls of those who live through it. The crisis puts a spotlight on actors who must respond to it, andContinue reading “How COVID-19 has sorted us out”