Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, right-wing pundit and evangelical Christian Charlie Kirk has not used the word “peace” or “prayer” on his Twitter feed. Instead, he has tweeted: Meanwhile, Kirk made an argument in Newsweek today that Satanists do...
Recently, a scholar in another discipline asked me how Christian nationalists who study the American past “ignore, navigate around, or distort the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.” I address this in Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A...
Perhaps those concerned about religious liberty as it relates to The Equality Act should consider this. Here is a taste of Adam Liptak’s parsing of a recent essay to be published in The Supreme Court Review: “For many today, religious...
Here is Stephen Salisbury at The Philadelphia Inquirer: The Newseum, an interactive museum in Washington, D.C., devoted to journalism, is gone, succumbing to financial woes. It closed at the end of 2019. But while the building on Pennsylvania Avenue has...
The New York Times is reporting that Simon & Schuster canceled the publication of Hawley’s forthcoming book after the Missouri senator objected to the results of 2020 Electoral College. Hawley’s book was titled The Tyranny of Big Tech and it...
Some of you have been following the situation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California. For the past two Sundays, pastor John MacArthur has held religious services in defiance of California’s COVID-19 regulations. MacArthur said: “We will obey...
What have Trump’s evangelicals been saying since our last update? Mike Pence’s nephew hosted a court evangelical conversation with Paula White, Johnnie Moore and Samuel Rodriguez. This is an event sponsored by the Trump campaign. Watch: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znrLg80dxjQ&w=560&h=315] At the 5:30...
Some folks on the Left do not want Samaritan’s Purse, an evangelical organization that only uses Christian health care workers and volunteers, to have a coronavirus field hospital in Central Park. They say that Samaritan’s Purse discriminates against the LGBTQ...
I haven’t had a chance yet to read Steven Waldman‘s new book Sacred Liberty: America’s Long, Bloody, and Ongoing Struggle for Religious Freedom, but I have heard good things about it. I was hoping to catch him next month at the...
Steven Green is the Fred H. Paulus Professor of Law and Affiliated Professor of History and Religious Studies at Williamette University. This interview is based on his new book, The Third Disestablishment: Church, State, and American Culture, 1940-1975 (Oxford University Press,...
Indiana University religion professor Winnifred Fallers Sullivan wants to know how the Supreme Court defines religion. Here is a taste of her piece at The Immanent Frame, “Is Masterpiece Cakeshop a Church?“: Let us weigh in where angels fear to...
When Lesley Stahl asked Donald Trump in an off-camera meeting to explain “his barrage of insults aimed at journalists.” Trump responded: ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when...
The Daily Progress has a nice piece on Kirt von Daacke, Professor of History at the University of Virginia and the university’s co-chairman of the President’s Commission on Slavery, who has been tweeting the results of his research. Check out...
I don’t know. But Bloomberg columnist and Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman thinks it might be. Here is a taste of his recent column: The sitting president has accused his predecessor of an act that could have gotten the past...
Over at dotCommonweal Peter Steinfels has some good thoughts about the way the press has handled the entire Russian dossier affair. A taste: Donald Trump is who he is. Despite all the wishful thinking, there is no inner “presidential” Trump...
Here is Ted Cruz talking with David Brody of the Christian Broadcasting Network about his so-called “God Talk.” (I am having trouble embedding the video. Watch it at the link above). Cruz is a master politician. This is a very...
We shopped this piece around a few weeks ago, but it never found a home. It is slightly outdated as far as the news cycle goes, but I am glad that History News Network has decided to run it. Here...
James Madison In a recent article in American Political Thought which I have yet to read, Mark David Hall argues that there is little evidence to support the claim that the men who ratified the first amendment were influenced by James...
I met Mark Chancey a few years ago in Durham, NC. I was speaking at a conference he helped organize at Duke University on the Bible in the public square. Since then I have turned to his work for help...
Elmwood Church A few weeks ago I did a post and an episode of the Virtual Office Hours on the controversy over whether or not the Ground Zero Cross should be displayed at a publicly funded museum devoted to the...
