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Trump’s Rise: What’s a Christian Progressive to Do?

By Jonathan Orbell

…ome of us feel a moral impulse to condemn the ugly sentiments at work in the Trump camp. But we have to keep the broader structural realities in mind—deindustrialization, an unequal economy recovery, the dissolution of the middle class. A look at Trump’s most recent wins at the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries as well as the Nevada caucus show that the reductive dismissiveness of progressive Christians is turning dangerous. A deeper, mor…

Mega-Church and State Separation? Not in an Election Year

By Daniel Schultz

…s. In a blog post they write: Powdersville First Baptist Church in Easley, South Carolina, exemplifies this process. In what its pastor describes as a “Lazarus story,” it went from being nearly insolvent to a thriving church with active missionary activities around the world. This has been attributed to the efforts of Pastor Brad Atkins, who assumed the role of senior pastor at the church in 2006. Under his leadership, average attendance at Sunday…

The Untold Story of Religious Support for Gay Rights

By Rebecca Alpert

…rotestants and the Rise of Gay Rights Heather R. White University of North Carolina Press (2015) Historians are detectives. They ferret around to find clues that will change the way we understand past events. Not all historians are as gifted (or lucky) as White, however, whose excellent and lucid account challenges three sacred cows in the study of LGBT religion, namely that the Bible condemns homosexuality, that religion has played a major role i…

The Religious Origins of Fake News and ‘Alternative Facts’

By Christopher Douglas

…cial media. The restaurant quickly “got hundreds of death threats on their phones and social media.” Then a North Carolina man decided to investigate the pedophilia ring himself, bringing an assault rifle that he fired in the restaurant. (No one was hurt.) As the man later explained about the absence of child sex slaves there, “The intel on this wasn’t 100 percent.” As we’ve moved from an election dominated by fake news to a new Trump administrati…

The Traitor Chaplain Who Gave Government Prayer to America — A 4th of July Corrective

By Andrew L. Seidel

…otion, wrote Adams: “was opposed by Mr. Jay of N. York and Mr. Rutledge of South Carolina, because we were so divided in religious Sentiments, some Episcopalians, some Quakers, some Aanabaptists, some Presbyterians and some Congregationalists, so that We could not join in the same Act of Worship.” John Jay and John Rutledge, who would become the first and second chief justices of the Supreme Court, opposed the prayer because the Continental Congre…

Apocalyptic Rhetoric at Moms for Liberty Summit Illustrates Political Challenge of 2024

By Chrissy Stroop

…ed with a new patriotic national identity. Former ambassador to the UN and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, an Indian-American daughter of immigrants who converted to Methodism, similarly railed against a supposed “national self-loathing” evident in things like “critical race theory” that the country ostensibly needs to overcome, in addition to attacking trans rights, peppering her comments with the word “blessed,” and throwing in a “God bless…

Taking Aim at Religion Itself, Apostles Prime Networks For Real-World Violence

By Frederick Clarkson

…least one apostolic center, Impact Church International in Concord, North Carolina, not only hosts a KU campus, but also the K4-12 Daniel Christian Academy, which is explicitly devoted to teaching about the seven mountains of dominion. From the website of the Daniel Christian Academy. Apostle and Pastor Donna Wise of Impact Church International claims in a 2022 post that too often the church, broadly speaking, is “concerned more with numbers and…

New Report Mapping Christian Nationalism by State Suggests Election Need Not be Played Out on Christian Nationalist Terms

By Daniel Schultz

…. And the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin? They’re all right around the national average. Those numbers are not destiny, however. Conservative Utah has low levels of agreement with Christian nationalism, at just 28%. Meanwhile its solidly Democratic neighbor New Mexico is a bit higher, at 32%. Still, the results are significant for understanding the political scene today. Christian nationali…

Virginians may Vote in Elections, But in Counties with Militias Democracy Hangs in the Balance

By Carolyn Gallaher and Priya Dixit

…etails for Trump Associates,” Politico, April 18, 2022. [39] “Proud Boys,” Southern Poverty Law Center, SPLC’s Extremist Files. [40] Cassie Miller, “Proud Boys are Still Violent, Despite Legal Woes,” Southern Poverty Law Center, August 25, 2021. [41] Derek Hawkins, Cleve R. Wootson Jr., and Craig Timberg, “Trump’s ‘stand by’ Remark Puts the Proud Boys in the Spotlight,” The Washington Post, September 30, 2020. [42] Vera Bergengruen, tweet on 29th…

Sorry, National Review: “Religious Freedom” Bills Do Permit Bigotry

By Sunnivie Brydum

…e faith-informed view of marriage differs from the government in, say, the number of spouses a person should be allowed to have, or with respect to the gender, age, or religious affiliation of the betrothed. Similarly, Desanctis’ argument falls apart when she tries to follow the claim to its logical end. Certainly, she contends, it should be legal for a Christian baker to refuse to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding, but that same baker should be…