The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia just released its 2020 survey of American political culture. It is titled Democracy in Dark Times. James Davison Hunter and Carl Desportes Bowman are the primary investigators/authors. It […]
James Davison Hunter
If a spiritual revival leads to more Christian Trumpism, is it really a spiritual revival? Or is it something else?
There are many white evangelicals who believe that a spiritual revival will solve the problem of racism in the United States. When God transforms a human heart, the argument goes, the inclination to perform racist acts will subside. So we […]
Friday night court evangelical roundup
What have Trump’s evangelicals been saying since yesterday’s update? They are not technically “court” evangelicals, but they are definitely Trump evangelicals. The Harris family is back and they are now a Trump worship band: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fZOgnIYdQs&w=560&h=315] Some of you may remember them from […]
Jim Wallis: “Trump is operating in the spirit of the anti-Christ”
Jim Wallis, the progressive evangelical leader of Sojourners, recently said in an interview with Publishers Weekly that Donald Trump “is operating in the spirit of anti-Christ.” (Wallis was discussing the themes of his new book Christ in Crisis : Why We Need […]
A Visit to Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary
I spent Monday night at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Massachusetts (Boston-area). Thanks to Gordon-Conwell president Dennis Hollinger for the invitation and Mary Ann Hollinger for her hospitality. The Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life sponsored conversation on […]
James Davison Hunter Talks About “The Culture Wars”
As far as I know, University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter coined the term “culture wars” in his 1991 book The Culture Wars: The Struggle to Control the Family, Art, Education, Law, and Politics in America. Over at The Wall Street […]
Thoughts on Michael Gerson’s “The Last Temptation”: Part 4
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 […]
Don’t Try to Change the World
A message to my fellow evangelicals from University of Virginia scholar James Davison Hunter‘s To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World: Any good that is generated by Christians is only the net […]
“Christian Politics?”: Week Four
Yesterday I taught the third of four 90-minute classes on Christian politics at West Shore Evangelical Free Church in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Read my summary of week one here and week two here and week three here. In week two, I introduced the political playbook of the Christian Right. […]
Quote of the Day
“It isn’t just the Constantinian temptation the church must repudiate but, more significantly, the orientation toward power that underwrites it. The proclivity toward domination and towards the politicization of everything leads Christianity today to bizarre turns; turns that, in my […]
Big Patriotism vs. Small Patriotism
I resonated with Bonnie Kristian‘s attempt to understand American patriotism in the context of this whole NFL-American flag mess. She uses Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to describe a “small patriotism”–something akin to hobbit Frodo’s love of the Shire. Here […]
My Piece on The Kasich Way at Religion News Service
Blog readers are familiar with my take on the presidential candidacy of John Kasich. I develop these ideas (and contextualize them) in my latest piece at Religion News Service. Here is a taste: (RNS) Republican Party leaders want John Kasich […]
More on the Kasich Way
Last month I wrote a post on “The Kasich Way.” Here is what I wrote: Kasich’s theology of politics comes from a slightly different place than the religious sensibilities informing the Cruz, Rubio, and Carson campaigns. Kasich doesn’t tout his […]
Brantley Gasaway: "Long Live the 'Culture Wars'?"
I am very excited to have Brantley Gasaway writing for us this weekend from the annual meeting of the American Historical Association in Atlanta. Brantley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Bucknell University. He is the author […]
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn on the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture
Lasch-Quinn Lasch-Quinn describe her latest visit to the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University Of Virginia, an institute run by James Davison Hunter. But what makes IASC stand out so much for me, what makes it so […]