Today a couple of Harry Reid pieces caught my attention. If you have not yet heard, the Nevada senator (1987-2017) and former Senate Majority Leader (2007-2015) died earlier this week. Over at The Washington Post, historian Benjamin Park reflects on...
Conservative news websites are freaking-out because Georgia senate candidate Raphael Warnock decried the “moral bankruptcy” of the American church for supporting Donald Trump in such large numbers. Watch this 2016 speech at Howard University: He is right. I hope Georgia...
First, the GOP platform condemns the sitting president, and now this: Maybe Trump should take some of the money he uses flying back and forth between the White House and Mar-a-Lago to hire a proofreader....
Over the last year I have received a lot of critical e-mails questioning my faith because I am not willing to assert that Donald Trump is God’s anointed servant to save America from the liberals (mostly Hillary Clinton and Barack...
I have been reading a lot of N.T. Wright lately. The Anglican New Testament scholar and theologian has been helpful as I try to think about how to speak faithfully in our current political moment in the United States. In...
This is a piece I wrote on last weekend’s CPAC that was never able to place. –JF The name of Mitt Romney was booed relentlessly at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Fort Washington, Maryland. This year’s CPAC...
This morning I was on a local radio show in the Boston area. When the host asked me what I thought about Christians getting involved in politics, I said, as I have before, that Christians who want to enter political...
I had a great visit yesterday with an adult education class at Mechanicsburg (PA) Church of the Brethren. The class is reading Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump and it was a privilege to be present to answer questions...
This past weekend (Friday and Saturday) I was spent some time at the beautiful campus of Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee. I was there for the Lee Symposium: A Conversation on Faith and the Liberal Arts. Retired Calvin College history...
I am looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Charles Camosy‘s new book Resisting Throwaway Culture: How a Consistent Life Ethic Can United a Fractured People. Camosy offers us a small glimpse of his argument in a...
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjDMETEIpiQ&w=560&h=315] This is not my district, but I live close to its borders. I have written before about the way Christianity has been fueling the Democratic candidates for Congress in south-central Pennsylvania. (Also see this post on Lutheran minister...
Yesterday USA Today published a piece I wrote about Trump and evangelicals. The editors chose the following title: “White evangelicals fear the future and yearn for the past. Of course Trump is their hero.” The article draws heavily from the introduction to Believe...
Matthew Bowman is associate professor of history at Henderson State University. This interview is based on his new book, Christian: The Politics of a Word in America (Harvard University Press, 2018). JF: What led you to write Christian: The Politics of a Word...
Click here for previous installments in this series. Click here to read Gerson’s article in The Atlantic. In this piece, I reflect on Gerson’s love of Catholic Social Teaching. Gerson writes: For a start, modern evangelicalism has an important intellectual piece...
Host John Fea and producer Drew Dyrli Hermeling continue to explore the many facets of the Culture Wars. Today, they tackle the often taboo subject of sex and politics. John discusses how sex was politicized in colonial America. They are...
While I was writing Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump (pre-order here), I did a lot of reading in the Old Testament books of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. (On Monday, I wrote...
This morning I taught the first of four 90-minute classes on Christian politics at West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg. We spent most of our time defining politics and examining five Christian approaches to political engagement. I began with...
Tomorrow at West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania I will be leading a 4-week course titled “Christian Politics?” Here is a description: Christian Politics? How should Christians engage in politics? We will examine the historical roots of Christian...
From Commonweal: [vimeo 215947556 w=640 h=360]...
In case you missed it, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof recently interviewed Jimmy Carter about his Christian faith. Here is a taste of the interview: Christians celebrate Easter on Sunday. But wait — do we really think Jesus literally...
