We live in a world that loves power, especially political power. Christians are not immune to this. In fact, conservative Christians—particularly evangelicals—have honed their political influence just as much, if not more, than other demographics in America. Billy Graham advised Presidents, evangelicals anchored the ‘Moral Majority’ for Ronald Reagan, and now most white evangelicals are propping up Donald Trump’s re-election chances.
Politics at Twilight: Faithful Political Engagement in an Age of Ideology
Over the last two decades, the trend away from deliberative discourse toward a kind of scorched earth politics on both ends of the spectrum has accelerated at a staggering pace: virtue signaling and performative moral posturing, the outrage cycle and the politics of grievance, cancel culture—all exacerbated by our consumption of media carefully curated by algorithms explicitly devised to confirm the views we already hold.
Editorial – Kingdom Politics
For many Americans, politics is everything. Which is why so many, Christian and non-Christian alike, give a sort of religious devotion to their political causes, and why they put biblical-like faith in political promises. This is also why every four-year election cycle—this one included—is such a big deal, why it takes on messianic and apocalyptic urgency.
Racism and the Church: How Should We Respond?
There are three distinct, though interrelated areas that need to be addressed: understanding, reconciliation and justice. Some quarters of the Christian Church may attend to one or the other of these, but we need a full-orbed approach, with pastors leading the way.
Costly Love in an Age of Virtue (Signaling)
Reckoning, Repentance, Reconciliation: Towards a More Just Society
We must reckon with the truth of who we are and who we have been as Americans, and American Christians.
Critical Race Theory, Loaded Language, and an Appeal for Nuance and Charity
It would be ignorant and abusive to suggest that every democrat is an ardent supporter of late-term abortions, or that every republican is xenophobic. Might that be true of some democrats or republicans? Of course. But the sweeping partisanship and vitriolic landscape that is the present political climate need not also describe our conversations within the church. To label and dismiss anyone with whom there is an apparent disagreement is to identify more with the pharisee than it is to identify with Christ.
Christians as a New Race: On Tertullian and the Epistle to Diognetus
One layer in the complexity of race in the American social fabric lies in the tension between what we can term the color-blind thesis and the anti-color-blind thesis. How do we navigate these waters as a church?
Race and Love: The Virtuous Mean as Vehicle for the Integrated Church
Virtuous love, over against apathetic or paternalistic love, seeks to embody the love of Christ. This is a love that, in part, sacrifices self in order to seek the good of another.
Editorial – More than Imago Dei
The truth is that race is a complex issue. And race in America—and in the American church—is surely among the most complex of issues we confront today.
Acknowledging this should be uncontroversial. For the history of race in America has been convoluted, at best. So, too, the Evangelical church’s part in that difficult story—at times courageous, at times complicit, all the while complicated.