California

When celebrity megachurch pastors get too close to politicians.

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Some California evangelicals love GOP gubernatorial candidate and conservative talk show host Larry Elder. None more than Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel–Chino Hills. Today Elder’s former fiancée and radio producer is accusing him of waving a gun at her while...

Episode 17: “The City by the Bay Starts Marrying Same-Sex Couples”

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San Francisco beats Massachusetts to the punch and starts issuing marriage licenses. The Christian Right responds. Episode 17: “The City by the Bay Starts Marrying Same-Sex Couples” dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above receive this narrative history...

The Western Klan

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When we think of the Ku Klux Klan we think about the American South during Reconstruction and the 1920s. But as Kevin Waite informs us in his recent piece at The Atlantic, the Klan also targeted Chinese immigrants in California....

The “moral complexity” of Junipero Serra

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Father Junipero Serra, a Franciscan priest who established some of the earliest Spanish missions  in California, has been under attack of late. On June 19, 2020, activists pulled-down a Serra statue in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The following day,...

What is going on with John MacArthur and Romans 13?

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I could say a lot of things here about John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, but until yesterday I always thought he took a pretty consistent stand on passages like Romans 13 that require Christians...

Friday night court evangelical roundup

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What have Trump’s evangelicals been saying since our last update? Jentezen is worried about the radical left controlling churches: California’s Governor just banned singing/chanting at church. Catholics can’t recite mass; Evangelicals can’t worship out loud. The very definition of discrimination is to allow thousands...

“Genuine Christian Faith is Larger Than the Constitution”

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It looks like more than 1200 California pastors will hold in-person services this weekend in violation of Governor Gavin Newsoms’s stay-at-home order. Read their letter to Newsom here. Here is Peter Marty, publisher of The Christian Century: What’s motivating this...

How Politics Shapes American History Textbooks

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In a nice piece of investigating reporting and research (which she writes about in this companion piece), New York Times education reporter Dana Goldstein compared middle school and high school textbooks read by students in California and Texas.  These books,...

California Confederates

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There were apparently a lot of Confederates in California.  Kevin Waite, a history professor at Durham University, explains at The New Republic: Earlier this month, the last major Confederate monument in California came down. It was a curious one: a nine-foot granite...

Song of the Day: Nostalgia Upon Nostalgia

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I am really enjoying Bruce Springsteen’s new album Western Stars.  Like I usually do when Springsteen releases a new album, I have been listening to Western Stars on repeat.  (It has been nice to take a break from the Hamilton soundtrack). Last week I was walking...

Father Junipero Serra is OUT at Stanford

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Here is the Stanford press release: Stanford will rename some campus features named for Father Junipero Serra, the 18th-century founder of the California mission system, but will retain the Serra name and the names of other Spanish missionaries and settlers...

“No, this was not a land dedicated to Big Macs”

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With the current debate taking place over whether to split California into three separate states, Rebecca Worby tells us about other secession movements in American history.  Here is a taste of her piece at Pacific Standard: MCDONALD TERRITORY No, this was...