Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages WN: This is one of the few times I also posted a book review to this Blog. This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book. In an interview with Religion […]
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Book Review of: Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2020, 356 pages WN: This is one of the few times I also posted a book review to this Blog. This is a highly disturbing–and informative–book. In an interview with Religion […]
Extensive Commentary On: What white Christian support for Trump reveals about systemic racism
By Robert P. Jones | November 12, 2020 [pullquote]But among the sizable minority of Americans who disagree with each of these statements, more than 80 percent voted for Donald Trump. In other words, a denial of systemic racism has become a defining trait among Trump’s strongest supporters. According to the exit polls, this divide over systemic […]
What is “Evangelical” Theology?
November 4, 2019 by Scot McKnight WN: In my book review of Kristin Kobes du Mez’ outstanding Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, I write: In essence therefore, being “conservative evangelical” “is as much about culture as it is about theology.” (p. 9) And therein lies its […]
Mapping the Evangelical Mind
By Abbie Storch October 20, 2021 WN: The review of Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith below offers fascinating insights. Most troubling is this observation: Whether through their embrace of individualism or their diagnosis of pluralism as the death knell of Christianity, Silliman argues, these books shaped the imaginations of […]
How America Fractured Into Four Parts
By George Packer July/August 2021 Issue The Atlantic image above: Lucy Jones WN: Wow! The essay is stunning as it is brilliant. At least read my excerpts below. Better though, purchase the book it is excerpted/adapted from: Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal. It challenges understanding about America’s past and present place in […]
An American Kingdom
By Stephanie McCrummen July 11, 2021 photo above: Mercy Culture Church in Fort Worth. (Dylan Hollingsworth for The Washington Post) WN: Oh dear! Oh dear! As my good Jesuit-trained friend Gerry Ayotte says, drawing on Tradition back to the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, God speaks loudest in the silence. In the fully choreographed […]
The Christian Right Is in Decline, and It’s Taking America With It
Opinion Michelle Goldberg July 9, 2021 photo above: Mark Peterson/Redux WN: To the first part of the title: Amen!!!1 To the second part: Whenever Christianity “owns” a culture it becomes corrupt. British 19th-century Catholic historian Lord John Acton observed: Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, […]
America Must Understand How Bad Trump Truly Was in Order to See What’s Coming
By Jake Jackson March 24, 2021 image source: Blog for Arizona WN: The situation in the U.S. continues to be dire, as it teeters on the brink of fascism. excerpts: Seldom do you come across a man who changed so much in so little time. His efforts normalised authoritarian tendencies, legitimised fascism, and shaped the […]
Trump loves white men. These ‘recovering Republicans’ no longer love him back.
Trump is never going to stop playing the role of the male champion on TV. But at least some men are starting to see through the lie. by Liz Plank Liz Plank, an MSNBC columnist, award-winning journalist and author, was the host of “Positive Spin.” Her book, “For the Love of Men: A New Vision […]
The Price of White Evangelical Patriarchy
By Eric C. Miller | July 7, 2020 photo above: Donald Trump stands near a statue of John Wayne during a news conference at the John Wayne Museum in Winterset, Iowa. (AP/Jae C. Hong) WN: Though not declamatory, this interview with Kristin Kobes Du Mez, author of just published Jesus and John Wayne: How White […]
Cornel West Says ‘Neo-Fascist Gangster’ Trump and Neoliberal Democrats Expose America as ‘Failed Social Experiment’
WN: Please see in light of the title this outstanding article by Canadian Wade Davis: The Unraveling of America. [pullquote]One knows a “civilization” is dying when small men cast long shadows.–anonymous American pastor, 2020[/pullquote] 1. Introduction to the Post: This post, updated numerous times, has become a kind of dog’s breakfast. One could spend hours […]
Inside the Influential Evangelical Group Mobilizing to Reelect Trump
Lee Fang May 23 2020, 3:00 a.m. photo above: politifact.com WN: These Evangelicals are very dangerous and scary–like their conservative Catholic counterparts. As they have embraced increasingly the Alt-Right, they like a close relative, will be among the first to take up arms in defence of Trump. They could not any more blatantly reject the Way […]
Many Evangelicals Excuse Anything Trump Does —
By Sasha Abramsky, Truthout Published November 30, 2019 WN: This kind of veneration is not only despicable, it is beyond heretical into a twilight zone of anti-religion: and profoundly anti-Christ. Please also see the daft: “‘An Idiotic False Equivalency’: GOP Rep. Loudermilk Implies Trump Impeachment Worse Than Trial of Jesus Christ“. excerpts: [su_dropcap size=”5″]E[/su_dropcap]nergy Secretary […]
AOC’s ‘Squad’ Represents Me As An American Jew – More Than Any Republican
July 16, 2019 by Shoshana Hershkowitz photo above: Getty Images WN: White American “Christian” Evangelicals, meet real (Judeo-)Christian values! Amen! excerpts: For me as an American Jew, seeing a diverse group of young women who are focused on progressive policies inspires me. As a Jewish woman, social and economic justice are inextricably connected with “Tikkun […]
American Carnage: a masterful must-read on Trump’s Republican takeover
Tim Alberta of Politico has written a compelling, alarming and scoop-heavy history of the fall of the party of Lincoln Lloyd Green Sat 13 Jul 2019 photo above: Mike Pence and Paul Ryan applaud as Donald Trump delivers his first address to Congress in February 2017. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool/EPA WN: Trump is beyond vile, […]
Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from Their Parents’ Beliefs
The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians. By Eliza Griswold August 27, 2018 WN: I have a white Canadian Evangelical friend who expresses being fed up with white Evangelical-bashing — in particular towards white Evangelicals south of the border1. I argue on the contrary that […]
Billy Graham & The Cold War Before the Culture War – White evangelical voters, Donald Trump, and the evolution of the religious right
The Cold War before the culture war March 6, 2018 by Fred Clark WN: What emerges with great clarity in the two articles highlighted below is the extent to which the “Red Scare” and the Cold War in the early years of Graham’s preaching dominated his message — at least implicitly. The further insight is […]
The Last Real Evangelical: Evangelist Billy Graham
Feb 23, 2018 photo above: Evangelist Billy Graham speaks in Dallas at the 1974 Southern Baptist Convention. (AP) by Mel White / MelWhite.org1 WN: On the day of Billy Graham’s death (February 21, 2018), I posted a critical commentary on Graham. Today I post a positive reflection by Mel White, who counted Graham as a […]
“Fox Evangelicals” Embrace Trump’s White Nationalism
Wednesday, 27 December 2017 07:36 BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT photo: Alan / Flickr [su_pullquote align=”right”]”But you will recognize them by their fruits.” – Jesus[/su_pullquote] WN: We know that the ultimate “fruit” is Love. From my Home page: Personal Mantra The Gospels indicate that the test case for love of God is love of […]
Katharine Hayhoe: A leading climate scientist, and an evangelical
by Lloyd Mackey • October 12, 2017 • 0 Comments chart above: How Fossil Fuel Money Made Climate Change Denial the Word of God WN: Sadly, faith and politics have been a toxic mix that has led to enormous denialism (like Holocaust deniers) in the Plymouth Brethren/evangelical communities Hayhoe was raised in. Her appeal to Christians to embrace what Catholics […]
Pope Francis allies accuse Trump White House of ‘apocalyptic geopolitics’
Article vetted by the Vatican offers scathing critique of Steve Bannon, who is Catholic, the Trump White House and ‘evangelical fundamentalism’ in the US photo above: Ivanka Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and President Donald Trump stand with Pope Francis during a meeting at the Vatican on May 24, 2017. Evan Vucci—AP WN: Utterly appalling and […]
White Supremacy Is Anti-Gospel. I’m Glad the Southern Baptist Convention Agrees
WN: I copied the entire article below. It is about an historic decision by the Southern Baptist Convention. Russell Moore has been the head of the (SBC) Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission since 2013. As you can see from the links, he has been an amazing voice within those ranks for actually […]
America’s Iran Hysteria
The Irrationality of Iran Vilification By Danny Sjursen Posted by Danny Sjursen at 7:46am, May 30, 2017. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter @TomDispatch. WN: It is now almost in every geopolitical instance a truism that if the United States says “black” the reality is the inverse – or significantly other. Such is the case in the article highlighted below. America’s view […]
Why I Oppose the Death Penalty
WN: I was invited to dialogue with Dr. Richard Land of (later) “The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission” of the Southern Baptist Convention. The dialogue was organized by the Presbyterian Church in Alaska because debate was heating up in a state with no death penalty on the books. (Since the death penalty’s abolition in 1957, […]
‘He’s Destroyed Conservatism’: The Republican Case Against Trump’s GOP
Stuart Stevens was a winning GOP operative. Now he feels terrible about what he’s done to the country. By MICHAEL GRUNWALD Michael Grunwald is a senior staff writer for Politico Magazine. 08/19/2020 photo above: AP/Patrick Semansky [NOTE: It took an article by Bob Ekblad (Blind and Deaf) in Clarion Journal, noted below, to occasion a revision […]
Justice That Restores, Charles W. Colson, Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2001. 172 pages
WN: Charles Colson’s book seems so out of place in the Age of Trump. Colson was of course a conservative Evangelical darling because he was “saved” post-Watergate and his solution to crime in America became simply personal conversion to Christ – as you will see below. And his kind of Christianity in turn has made […]
Pope revises catechism to say death penalty is ‘inadmissible’
Commits the church to working toward its abolition worldwide1 Aug 2, 2018 by Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service Theology photo above: Pope Francis gestures before speaking about the death penalty at an event marking the 25th anniversary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, at the Vatican in this Oct. 11, 2017, file photo. […]
Judgment days
In a small Alabama town, an evangelical congregation reckons with God, President Trump and the meaning of morality Please go to the end to read the fascinating article by the above title and subtitle1. WN: Trump – “Angel of Light” A kind of mantra in my Canadian white evangelical upbringing went, “You can be sincere […]
Re-issuing: How Fossil Fuel Money Made Climate Change Denial the Word of God
by Brendan O’Connor August 8, 2017 WN: I decided to republish this article of seven years ago. The supreme haughty superiority of Christians who just know all the massive, irrefutable science about human-caused climate change — as the massive scientific support for the Darwinian theory of evolution — are all a big hoax, “because the […]
Rwanda Dispatches May 18 to July 12, 2018
At 30 years on to this day, April 7, 2024, the Rwanda Genocide broke out, that saw more than 1 million Rwandans murdered. CBC did the interview you see below. 30 years after Rwandan genocide, Roméo Dallaire feels ‘rage’ amid global crises | Watch (msn.com) Roméo Dallaire led the UN’s peacekeeping mission when more than […]
Easter Song and Reflections on the Resurrection
***NOTE: Please check out the footnotes for additional, more detailed commentary. Also, there are poetry and songs in the final footnote; and four additional songs below that.*** Please also see two great sermons, one on Good Friday, the other on Easter Sunday, by my colleague Randy Klassen: both in the context of criminal/restorative justice. Easter […]
Comments On: Amazing Disgrace
By Sarah Posner Illustration above by Brian Reedy. Think of the illustration in conjunction with this hugely ironic quote, one that said far more about Christian Nationalist sentiment than the good reverend knew: “We put God right at the center of the White House.” —Paula White, speaking at an Evangelicals for Trump event at Solid […]
Circles of Support and Accountability
Needless to say, I believe in Restorative Justice and CoSA!
Is Violence Master of Us All?: Fight, Flight or Just Peacemaking
WN: The host was the affable lawyer Gerry Palmer, quite well-known in Abbotsford for his work with numerous non-profit organizations, and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Business at the University of the Fraser Valley. Is Violence Master of Us All?: Fight, Flight or Just Peacemaking Philosopher’s Café: Legal Grounds Coffee House, Abbotsford, April […]
Commentary on: “Gomez, painting Catholics as victims, goes after his woke oppressors”
Nov 10, 2021 by Thomas Reese, Religion News Service Opinion Politics photo above: Wikipedia WN: I felt gobsmacked by the Archbishop’s earlier speech. More: I felt embarrassed to identify as a Christian alongside such seeming anti-Christ sentiments (though I’m not Roman Catholic). As I read that article, I kept thinking, surely he’ll pull up from […]
Walter Wink & “The Myth of Redemptive Violence”
November 8, 2021 by Robert Koehler WN: The author of the highlighted article below is right on. For background to Walter Wink’s use of the term, please see: Facing the Myth of Redemptive Violence The myth of redemptive violence and ‘The Hateful Eight’ Book Extract: The Powers That Be: Theology for a New Millennium by […]
Reflections on “God, Trump and the Closed-Door World of a Major Conservative Group”
By Robert O’Harrow Jr. October 25, 2021 image above: Nick Ogonosky WN: There is a telling quote in the article highlighted below: “We’ve got an amazing opportunity here,” [Jim DeMint, a former senator and tea party favorite] told them. “And it’s incredible with this president, who is the last person I ever thought would promote […]
Going “Inside the Effort to Create a ‘Christian Nationalist’ Internet”
Jack Jenkins October 20, 2021 WN: What more is there to say? The subtitle of a book by Kristin Kobes du Mez says it all. And the book is superbly researched and written. (Click on it for my review. Subtitle bolded.): Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation. […]
Interaction With “The CIA: 70 Years of Organized Crime”
September 22, 2017 by Douglas Valentine – Lars Schall photo above by Tom Thai | CC BY 2.0 WN: Welcome to America the Beautiful. As kids, my brothers and I loved the highlighted song, as sung by George Beverly Shea–who performed in front of more people than any other singer in history. We played it […]
Legacy of Shame:
October 19, 2021 by Kenn Orphan photo above: Photograph Source: Reagan White House Photographs – Public Domain WN: Saint Augustine recounts this story of Empire: The king asked the fellow, “What is your idea, in infesting the sea?” And the pirate answered, with uninhibited insolence, “the same as yours, in infesting the earth! But because […]
On A letter from Hell
By Robin Schumacher, Exclusive Columnist photo above: pxhere.com WN: It is interesting that the photo chosen for the article highlighted below (not shown above) is along the lines of what Larry Dixon wrote (The Other Side of the Good News: Contemporary Challenges to Jesus’ teaching on hell 1 in apparent approval of an instance of […]
They Went to Bible College to Deepen Their Faith.
Becca Andrews September 30, 2021 photo above: yelp.com WN: The article highlighted below begins with Megan Wohlers telling her story of abuse, and ends with these understated words from her: And that’s not how Jesus would have acted. I added October 24, 2021 almost an identical story, only from Jerry Falwell’s (Founder) Liberty University. His […]
Josh McDowell steps back from ministry after controversial remarks on black families
By Michael Gryboski, Christian Post Reporter September 23, 2021 photo above: Josh McDowell speaks at Talbot Chapel at Biola University in California on January 21, 2020. | YouTube/Biola University WN: Meanwhile, 82 years and 150 books in, Christian “intellectual” McDowell has finally learned something about Black History in America? Thank God we’re never too old […]
What Jason Kenney’s ‘mission accomplished’ moment has reaped for Alberta
By Jason Markusoff September 15, 2021 photo above: Jason Kenney speaks on July 12 at the Premier’s annual Stampede breakfast in Calgary. (Jeff McIntosh/CP) WN: Jason Kenney, a conservative Catholic, should go back and read Proverbs 16:18: Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall. My wife and I attended a Memorial for […]
9/11 was a test:
Essay by Carlos Lozada Illustration above: by Patrik Svensson Sept. 3, 2021 [pullquote]. . . the official response to 9/11 unleashed some of its worst qualities: deception, brutality, arrogance, ignorance, delusion, overreach and carelessness.[/pullquote]WN: Below are excerpts from an outstanding essay by a Pulitzer Prizer winner for criticism in 2019. But the last lines, though […]
Apocalypse Right Now
Opinion Maureen Dowd July 24, 2021 photo above: Fire consumed a home as the Sugar Fire tore through Doyle, Calif., this month.Credit…Noah Berger/Associated Press WN: As the author’s last line states: Après moi, le déluge –This is generally regarded as a nihilistic expression of indifference to whatever happens after one is gone,[2] though it may […]
War Criminal Donald Rumsfeld Found Dead at 88
by Phyllis Bennis July 1, 2021 photo above: Then-US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld addresses a press conference at the Pentagon on 4 May 2004, more than a month after the US invasion of Iraq (AFP/File photo) WN: Rumsfeld did monstrous evil around the world, on a scale not unlike that of World War II […]
How did a small town [Lytton BC] in Canada become one of the hottest places on Earth?
by Eric Holthaus Wed 30 Jun 2021 WN: We’re in this new normal, with much more and worse to come!1 And subsequently this grand tragedy happened to Lytton (by Andrea Woo, Patrick White and Carrie Tait, Lytton, British Columbia, Published July 1, 2021): ‘Like a war zone’: B.C. village of Lytton destroyed by fire. Unlike […]
Empire Politician:
The new president’s paper trail reveals a man who has often betrayed his own bedrock principles. Jeremy Scahill April 28 2021 WN: The article highlighted pulls no punches in underscoring Biden’s war-hawk and pro-police brutality policies over a lifetime as a politician. He–as anyone–still may change! But not his brutal record, as laid out in […]
There Is No Christian Case for Trump
January 30, 2020 Peter Wehner Contributing writer at The Atlantic and senior fellow at EPPC photo above: President Trump speaking to evangelical supporters in Miami, Florida on January 3, 2020.Eva Marie Uzcategui / Reuters WN: There are multiple reasons for critiquing “Christian” behaviour in America. Especially egregious is white Evangelical embrace of Trump. In this […]
Reckoning with the Toxicity of Christian Nationalism
By Bill Berkowitz February 8, 2021 WN: The article highlighted below is very disturbing for followers of the one Mark Lewis Taylor dubs The Executed God (book review here, with the subtitle: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America). I stand in perpetual amazement at how the New Testament Jesus is read to be […]
Manmeet Singh Bhullar Left A Legacy Of Making Others Feel Like They Belong
Manmeet Singh Bhullar Left A Legacy Of Making Others Feel Like They Belong The grief and lessons, five years after I lost my brother. By Tarjinder Bhullar, Special To HuffPost photo: Courtesy of Tarjinder Bhullar WN: This testimonial is powerful and delightful, while tinged with acknowledging a tragic loss to his family–also to Canada and […]
The McCarrick Report: The Vatican Owns Up To Enabling Abuse
The McCarrick Report: The Vatican Owns Up To Enabling Abuse November 10, 2020 by Mary Pezzulo WN: The article highlighted is powerful! It also points to exponential pain, horror, and abuse of those reporting their abuse by priests–by the wider Church which gaslighted/gaslights/revictimized/revictimizes victims beyond imagining . . . One reads and weeps all over […]
The Man Card
WN: Please see this new and powerful video–free until November 3! It tells America’s story of the past half century through White Male Identity Politics. Canadian-born Liz Plank in her fall 2019 book (before the pandemic!), For the Love of Men: From Toxic to a More Mindful Masculinity states baldly: Although the news often focuses […]
The Priority of Peaceableness in a Disruptive Election
Craig M. Watts October 26, 2020 General, Peace & Nonviolence, Politics WN: The article highlighted is very sobering. Amen to the last two sentences: Blood may be shed. But may it never be by our hands. excerpts: Extensive studies have shown the vast majority of political violence in the US in nearly thirty years –with […]
An Open Letter To Joe Biden
Dear Mr. Biden. If I might be so bold, I wonder about connecting some dots at this incredible kairos moment of U.S. and world history. I was moved by your empathetic videoed message to the Floyd family during the funeral service in Houston. You have deeply suffered multiple losses as this article sensitively points out: […]
Editorial: Dolan delivers the church to Trump and the GOP
Editorial: Dolan delivers the church to Trump and the GOP Apr 28, 2020 by NCR Editorial Staff photo above: New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan celebrates Easter Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral April 12 during the coronavirus pandemic. (CNS/Reuters/Jeenah Moon) WN: The article highlighted below shows American Catholic leadership in relation to Trump and his party […]
We must call the El Paso shooting what it is: Trump-inspired terrorism
It is staggering to imagine how much more violence this president may motivate if he continues down this deeply disturbing path photo above: Trump’s rhetoric is infused with notions of violence and dehumanization’. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images by David Schanzer WN: While I do not believe anyone is pure evil, manifestations of such are arguably […]
Editorial: The politics of division stripped of any disguise
Jul 18, 2019 by NCR Editorial Staff photo above: The White House is seen in Washington July 12. (CNS/Tyler Orsburn) WN: This is so well stated, it bears quoting in full. Opinion The stock market indexes keep pushing through the ceiling. Your portfolio looks better than it has in years. The jobless rate recently hit […]
Good Riddance to Cultural Christianity
Good Riddance to Cultural Christianity April 19, 2019| nones, Religious Right, voluntary association photo above: Pat Robertson speaks at the Road to Victory event at the Christian Coalition Conference September 19, 1998 in Washington, DC (Richard Ellis / Alamy Stock Photo). WN: Of course, “cultural Christianity” is ever part of Christian expression in all eras, […]
Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity
Tribunal Declares Trump and Duterte Guilty of Crimes Against Humanity By Marjorie Cohn, Truthout Published March 14, 2019 photo above: CNN Politics WN: The article highlighted below describes a continuing horror story… Lord, have mercy. Then, I must confess that this article makes me hopping furious for another reason! I’m livid about the majority of […]
Nova Scotia Chocolatier Peace by Chocolate Pledges To Hire 50 Refugees By 2022
Nova Scotia Chocolatier Peace by Chocolate Pledges To Hire 50 Refugees By 2022 The now-famous company will also mentor 10 refugee startups over the next few years. Holly McKenzie-Sutter Canadian Press photo above: Andrew Vaughan/CP — Assam Hadhad, a Syrian refugee, displays a tray of chocolates at Peace by Chocolate in Antigonish, N.S. on Sept. […]
Theology That Builds Walls
Theology That Builds Walls January 8, 2019 by Morgan Guyton photo above: First Baptist Church of Dallas on “Freedom Sunday” WN: “Salvation Industrial Complex” (S.I.C.) is a new one on me, and quite apt! So is the entire article, that is highlighted below. The author’s book also looks quite interesting: especially when so […]
The Kavanaugh Hearings
The Kavanaugh Hearings by John Graham WN: This is very wise commentary — thanks to one of my nieces for sending it our way. Of course, the issue is far greater: ultimate American Empire privilege in a world designed and brutally buttressed to be its oyster. No one in the American political system is exempt, […]
Justice That Transforms — Book Series
First 3 Volumes Fall 2018; Volume One Republished January 2020; two more projected late 2023 SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. WN: I’m pleased to add this page about three books produced fall 2018. They are of my writings on Restorative Justice over the years, including (in Volume One) […]
Reckoning With John McCain
Respecting the best of McCain requires grappling with the rest of McCain. By Timothy Patrick McCarthy Twitter August 27, 2018 photo above: John McCain in 2007. (Dennis Van Tine / MediaPunch / IPX) WN: In my view, the article highlighted below is a respectful, balanced assessment of Senator McCain, when seen through the lenses of […]
Donald Trump’s Fixer Says the President Engaged in a Criminal Conspiracy to Sway the 2016 Election
That’s impeachable. By John Nichols Twitter August 22, 2018 10:40 am photo above: Michael Cohen leaves his federal court hearing in New York on August 21, 2018. (Reuters / Brendan McDermid) WN: Is anyone really surprised?! The answer shouts out from the question1. Yet an acquaintance, the vast majority of white Evangelicals, and in general Trump’s […]
How Does This All End? How Do We Come Back Together?
August 1, 2018 by Tim Suttle 8 Comments WN: In the article highlighted below, we are told — again by this author — that America has a wisdom problem. I have no doubt that he is right. What must be asserted however much more so is that America has an Evil Empire problem. When an […]
What It’s Like Inside the Largest Immigrant Prison in the US
By Christina Fialho Salon Published August 4, 2018 photo above: A guard escorts an immigrant detainee from his ‘segregation cell’ back into the general population at the Adelanto Detention Facility on November 15, 2013 in Adelanto, California. John Moore/Getty Images WN: It is ever true that the measure of any civilization is its prisons. Fyodor […]
Enough Bombs Bursting in Air. We Need to Love One Another.
By William Rivers Pitt Truthout, Published July 4, 2018 WN: I love it when people not necessarily in the faith reflect back to us Jesus’ central message to “love one another”. And I think it singularly sobering that they remind people of faith about its central tenet. Would that the white evangelical majority everywhere in […]
How Martin Luther Paved the Way for Donald Trump
To understand why evangelicals support the president, look to the first Protestant. By Michael Massing April 19, 2018 illustration above by Sabine Formane WN: This article draws a fascinating direct line from Martin Luther in the early 16th century to Donald Trump in the 21st. There is likewise a fascinating/tragic direct line to be drawn […]
The Last Temptation
How evangelicals, once culturally confident, became an anxious minority seeking political protection from the least traditionally religious president in living memory Michael Gerson April 2018 Issue Politics WN: This is a greatly informed, wise and even hopeful assessment of what has happened to white Evangelicals in America since their embrace of Trump (81% voted for […]
Billy Graham and the Gospel of Fear
February 21, 2018 byCecil Bothwell Photo above by Richard Bromley | CC BY 2.0 [NOTE: For a differing view with my reflection on it, please also see my February 23, 2018 post about Billy Graham.] WN: Billy Graham’s passing (February 21, 2018) will occasion countless eulogies the world over; he will be touted as the […]
The Fundamentalists Holding Us Back from a Climate Change Solution
The evangelical Christian movement has been at war with environmentalism for decades—but the stakes have never been higher. By ALLIE CONTI illustrated by LIA KANTROWITZ Aug 20 2017, 7:15pm WN: It is truly tragic to see US politics swayed by a minority of religious climate change deniers – out of all proportion to their numbers. […]
“Trump Feels a Kinship With Authoritarian Leaders”: Richard Falk on Turmoil in the Middle East
Wednesday, June 28, 2017 By C.J. Polychroniou, Truthout | Interview photo above: Professor Richard A. Falk speaks at the 10th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, March 23, 2009. (Photo: UN Geneva) WN: There is someone in my acquaintance who is virulently right wing and pro-Trump. He jumps all over every shred of […]
Trial of the Century Pits Trump Climate Denialism Against ‘Right to a Climate System Capable of Sustaining Human Life’
Published on Friday, February 24, 2017 by Common Dreams photo above: The climate kids asked the court to declare that their constitutional and public trust rights have been violated and to order the government to develop a science-based National Climate Recovery Plan to reduce emissions to a climate-safe level. (Photo: Our Children’s Trust) Why ‘Climate […]
We Are All Deplorables
Posted on Nov 20, 2016 By Chris Hedges an excerpt: Those cast aside by the neoliberal order have an economic identity that both the liberal class and the right wing are unwilling to acknowledge. This economic identity is one the white underclass shares with other discarded people, including the undocumented workers and the people of color demonized by the carnival […]
An Open Letter to Michelle Obama, October 13, 2016
WN: A friend reminded me, in response to that below, that none of us in the first world is untainted vis à vis violence. And with that taintedness is a bending at least towards hypocrisy and Pharisaism – which my friend also reminded me about. So with that mea culpa, please read on.: Dear […]
When Billy Graham Planned To Kill One Million People
photo above: Billy Graham visited troops in Vietnam around Christmastime 1966 and returned in 1968. His son Franklin Graham, CEO and president of the BGEA, shared: “My father felt it was important to go and minister to the U.S. Military. He went to Vietnam not because he supported the war, he was going there to […]
Billy Graham – Echoes in the Shadows
This was written by Bill C. Davis. WN: Billy Graham has been the most known representative Evangelical for the last half of the twentieth century. No one has emerged in the twenty-first to take his place. This is why in my novel he appeared as THE representative Evangelical. As such, he most represents the tragedy […]
Capital Punishment
image above: izquotes.com WN: I was invited to dialogue with Dr. Richard Land of (later) “The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission” of the Southern Baptist Convention. The dialogue was organized by the Presbyterian Church in Alaska, and took place March 22, 1997 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was teleconferenced throughout Alaska including into […]
Book Reviews List
SEARCH and ARCHIVES options are at the bottom of all website pages. A Farewell To Mars: An Evangelical Pastor’s Journey Toward the Gospel of Peace –Brian Zahnd Against The Death Penalty: Christian and Secular Arguments Against Capital Punishment –Gardner C. Hanks A Gentler God: Breaking Free of the Almighty in the Company of the Human Jesus […]
“Not Enough!” and International Restorative Justice
Colloquium on Violence & Religion (COV&R) Presentation, May 31 – June 4, 2006, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada WN: When I finally decided to register to present a paper at my friend Vern Redekop’s urging (he was the Conference host), there was only a slot left under French language workshops. I immediately asked two bilingual colleagues about […]
Restorative Justice
NOTE: Some of what follows is excerpted from Chapter One of Justice That Transforms: Volume 1 WN: From a Canadian vantage point, Dr. Herman Bianchi, a Dutch criminologist, is one of the three “grandfathers” (if one must use that term) chronologically of Restorative Justice, together with Mark Yantzi and Dave Worth, the first and longstanding […]