News, Opinion, Research, Books |
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1. "The Walls of the Church Couldn’t Keep the Trump Era Out: The young pastor wasn’t sure his congregation would like what he had to say and had no idea where it would lead all of them. He found himself at a crossroads of God, Alabama and Donald Trump." After the sermon on the refugees, churchgoers began to monitor Mr. Thomas’s posts on Facebook, reporting back to each other when something the pastor “liked” was seen by them as too liberal. When a group of church missionaries returned from a humanitarian trip to the Mexican border, they got a cold welcome from those who said they supported Mr. Trump’s border wall plans. One family proposed a “watchdog” group to ensure new members weren’t gay. 2. Albert Mohler interviewed by The New Yorker: "How the Head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Came Around to Trump" President Trump is a huge embarrassment. And it’s an embarrassment to evangelical Christianity that there appear to be so many who will celebrate precisely the aspects that I see Biblically as most lamentable and embarrassing. So I have to make a distinction between voting for a candidate and rationalizing for a candidate, much less being enthusiastic about what I would see as the character faults of a candidate. I intend to vote for Donald Trump in 2020, but my shift is from reluctantly not voting for him in 2016 to what you might call reluctantly voting for him in 2020, and hoping for his reëlection, because the alternative is increasingly unthinkable. But I will not become an apologist for the misbehavior of the President and for what I see as glaring deficiencies in his private and public character. 3. “I Suppressed So Much of My Humanity in Being Here”: What it’s like to be black at Liberty University. Joshua McMillion, who graduated in 2018 and went on to work for the school until this spring, said he was struck by Liberty’s silence during the early waves of the Black Lives Matter movement. “The leaders were either completely silent or would bring in speakers to gaslight students,” he said. He recalled feeling that the school used speakers like Ben Carson to make it look like it was addressing issues important to black students. But when a predominantly black ministry McMillion belonged to wanted to host a panel discussion on Black Lives Matter, an administrator refused to allow the event to take place on campus. 4. Trump allies see a mounting threat: Biden’s rising evangelical support Many conservative evangelical leaders have argued that Biden’s positions on cultural issues — like abortion, judges and religious freedom — are disqualifying. Still, anxiety is growing inside Trump’s orbit about the former vice president’s ability to peel off Christian voters who supported Trump in 2016, including the 81 percent of white evangelicals he carried, according to eight administration officials, White House allies and people involved with the Trump campaign. 5. President Trump interviewed by CBN. "I just hope I get tremendous evangelical Christian support and I'm not saying this as a bragging thing, nobody has done more for religion than I have. Look what I've done in Israel, which is a big thing with the evangelicals." |
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A roundup of reactions to last week's Bostock decision at SCOTUS: Robert P. George: "The legislation handed down by the Court will have far-reaching consequences, including the eventual destruction of all-women’s sports." Russell Moore: "The ruling also will have seismic implications for religious liberty, setting off potentially years of lawsuits and court struggles, about what this means, for example, for religious organizations with religious convictions about the meaning of sex and sexuality." Rod Dreher: "It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this decision, and the size of the loss to religious and social conservatives. SCOTUS, the highest legal authority in the land, has declared that homosexuality and transgenderism are like race. If you disagree, you are on the side of Klansmen, in effect." Daniel Bennett: "The case will certainly have major implications for religious exercise. But contrary to initial reactions, this decision should not be read as a decision that dooms religious liberty in America, but rather as an inevitable step toward something Congress and most state legislatures have thus far been unable to do: crafting a compromise that balances LGBT rights and religious freedom." Andrew Walker: "Monday’s decision, barring a comprehensive statutory compromise, will be judged by historians as a significant inflection point in the never-ceasing culture wars." Michael Wear: "Religious conservatives were always wrong to deny basic LGBTQ rights in order to protect themselves. But Monday’s Supreme Court decision makes it clear that their approach was both morally and strategically flawed. The ruling also shows that social conservatives’ support for Trump was a mistake from the start." Kevin DeYoung: "Here’s a culture war strategy conservative Christians should get behind: have more children and disciple them like crazy. Strongly consider having more children than you think you can handle. You don’t have to be a fertility maximalist to recognize that children are always lauded as a blessing in the Bible." Tim Miller: "And while Vance’s warning about the end of nations may have been a rococo response to the Supreme Court decision holding that the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on sex discrimination in employment also banned employee termination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, he was joined by a parade of conservatives for whom BUT GORSUCH has gone from a Trumpist clarion call to an incubus that haunts their dreams." |
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1. Executive Order on Strengthening the Child Welfare System for America’s Children First, State and local child welfare agencies often do not have robust partnerships with private community organizations, including faith-based organizations. ... Sec. 2. Encouraging Robust Partnerships Between State Agencies and Public, Private, Faith-based, and Community Organizations. 2. EVANGELICAL LEADERS, EVANGELICAL DREAMERS RESPOND TO SUPREME COURT DACA DECISION Today, as the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that will, for the moment, keep Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in place, a broad range of evangelical leaders sent a letter to Congress urging them to permanently resolve the situation of Dreamers. |
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1. Webinar: Join the Trinity Forum and the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities on Friday, June 26th for a conversation on leadership in a time of crisis. What does it take to listen, respond, learn, and lead? How do leaders prepare for the unexpected and unpredictable? Shirley Hoogstra, Russell Moore, Justin Giboney and Walter Kim will highlight the historic values of leadership, share lessons learned from their own life, and provide encouragement for leaders today. 2. BJC online luncheon, June 26: A national conversation on white supremacy and American Christianity, featuring Robert P. Jones and Adelle Banks |
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1. Russell Moore interviews Mark Noll on Evangelicals: Who They Have Been, Are Now, and Could Be. 2. The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump: 30 Evangelical Christians on Justice, Truth, and Moral Integrity An essay adapted from George Yancey's chapter was posted at The Bulwark: Why Evangelicals Support Trump—and Why They Shouldn’t. A review of the book by Dwight A. Moody. Not everyone in this volume sees the Christianity Trump is violating the same way. Some are focused on a scheme of personal righteousness; and here I mention Irene Fowler, who lists “the core values of Christianity” as humility, truth, personal righteousness, love of God and others but not the world, and care of the oppressed” (48-49). Others understand the faith in more social terms; and I offer as evidence the wide-ranging moral vision of Steven E. Meyer, who names economic values (rich over the poor, even before the greatest crash since the Depression), environmental issues (deleting hundreds of regulations designed to protect this good earth), and foreign policy (favoring the strong man over the immigrant and the refugee). His 14-page essay (181-194) is the longest in the book: “Quo Vadis, America?” Perhaps the best piece is one borrowed from The Atlantic, written by Peter Wehner and entitled “The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity” (73-77). ... What is strangely under-represented in the book is the issue of race. Black Lives Matter was just bursting on the social scene as this book went to press. White supremacy in the church and in the country is a much bigger issue than this book of essays reflects; it is a much larger component to the Trump Effect than this book allows. Thanks to Napp Nazworth for holding up this banner in the anti-trump parade (with his article “Race-Baiter, Misogynist, and Fool”, 32-41). Subscribers to this newsletter can get a copy for 40% off with the code DANGER40. I'll be giving away another free copy to one, maybe two, subscribers to this newsletter. Stay tuned for more info. |
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