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New Book on Trump and Evangelicals Gets it Mostly Right

…tories within evangelicalism. Fea repeatedly notes evangelicals’ mixed (at best) history with respect to race relations. He devotes nine pages to the history of racial fear in the evangelical South, but he never gets messy with the most telling factor: that no other religious group even remotely approaches white evangelicals’ preference for Trump. Race proved one of the most decisive predictors of Trump support, and white evangelicals were the mos…

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What the Hell is Wrong With Us? A Muslim Response to America’s Failure to Change

…ask the reader of the Qur’an, over and over again, to reflect, to use her best judgment, to make her best effort, and to learn from others? If the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was the last Prophet—and Islam certainly insists on as much—then everything he communicated has to be universal enough to be meaningful but flexible enough to reflect the nuances and characteristics of different experiences. This is one thing a lot of people don’t u…

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Toward a Richer Ethical Discourse in Trumplandia: A Response to Harper’s “Trump: A Resister’s Guide”

…but I will say, that religion rooted in basic human equality is one of the best bridges for “constructive engagement.” In her “Lessons from the Last Fight,” Sarah Schulman evokes the powerful resistance culture represented by ACT UP and the Lesbian Avengers in the struggle for the compassionate treatment of people suffering with HIV and AIDS. She reminds us that this culture thrived from an ethic of “mutual recognition”: respect for what other act…

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Prosperity Preachers: Where Are They Now?

forced the notion that difficult economic times signify a lack of faith at best, and a sinful spirit at worst? So where are they now? Where are these preachers as parishioners’ mortgages continue to default and gas prices bust the average working family’s budget? Where are they as families fall into an economic tailspin due to unforeseen job losses and out of control healthcare costs? And where are they as parishioners increasingly discover that t…

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The Social Science Animal: Brooks Argues for Emotion over Reason

…t need Brooks to feed me this. And, although I’ve suggested that Brooks is promoting a kind of “reformed” humanism, he also makes it clear in Animal that he’s really just advancing the British stream of Enlightenment humanism (advanced by thinkers like Adam Smith and Edmund Burke) which celebrated the power of sentiments and affects, rather than the French (promoted by figures like Descartes and Voltaire), which advanced the work of reason and rat…

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A Revolutionary Plea in the Wake of Attempted Synagogue Bombing

…to bomb two synagogues in New York, since, according to one suspect, “the best target” — the World Trade Center — “was hit already.” The disturbing calculus of these men can only be understood in the context of hatred, ignorance, stereotypes, and bad theology. The best antidote to this plot – and future plots like it – is more interfaith activity. We are not naïve enough to think that simply knowing folks across lines of faith will prevent violen…

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The Women’s March, Anti-Semitism, and ‘The Jewish Farrakhan’

…ntisemitic act, is thus interpreted as if it is by definition insincere at best, trickery at worst. Acknowledging the good the NOI has done in helping single Black women and incarcerated Black men doesn’t matter because acknowledging the legitimacy of an antisemite, even regarding things that have nothing whatsoever to do with Jews, puts one in his camp. Antisemitism is no longer a descriptor of behavior, but a tool of exclusion. This controversy,…

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Evangelical “Sexual Purity” Is Not About Sex—It’s About Power

…aders? Sexual purity movements, past and present, are not ultimately about promoting a biblical view of sexuality. They are about explaining large-scale culture crises (e.g. Anglo-Saxon decline, the Cold War, changing gender roles and sexual mores) and providing a formula for overcoming those crises. Today’s movement is laden with a therapeutic rhetoric that presents these choices as the best choices for those who seek to conform their behaviors t…

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Ebola and Us: The American Roots of Liberia’s Trauma

…ship already-converted African-Americans back to Africa and wish them the best of luck. The work of the Colonization Society entailed what we now call ethnic cleansing, which the less high-minded among its founders understood full well. The Rev. Robert Finley, a Southern Presbyterian associate of Mills, made the case for Black removal in a letter to a friend in 1816:”Could they be sent back to Africa, a three-fold benefit would arise: we should b…

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The Wounded People of God

…or healing for parishioners, but realized his position perhaps was not the best one from which he could provide solace or healing given this particular situation. So he asked me and another colleague to intervene. It was a tough but rewarding experience, one I carry with me whenever I speak or write on this issue. So understand, when I criticize the church and its authorities harshly, it is because I feel the pain of those who suffered abuse, and…

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