(ANALYSIS) The lavish over-use of capital letters in the 2024 Republican Party platform, set for approval at this week’s Milwaukee convention, demonstrates that this is wholly a Donald Trump production. So does the Trumpublicans’ softened stance on abortion, which has dominated the news coverage.
Read More(OPINION) As we all sit here stunned watching the footage of the attempted assassination of President Trump, it really is a time for reflection. Are we contributing to this atmosphere of hatred and violence? What kind of emotions do we stir up with the words we speak and the memes we post? What are we fomenting? To what end?
Read More(OPINION) There is a new challenge for pro-life voters as we approach the 2024 elections. On the one hand, it’s impossible for a truly pro-life voter to vote for a Democratic presidential candidate given the radical, pro-abortion stance of that party. That holds true as well for the positions of President Biden, which continue to lurch farther to the left. But now that the RNC has embraced the watered down platform crafted by the Trump team, do we acquiesce and vote GOP?
Read MoreThe ongoing war between Israel and Hamas is having reverberations across the globe. This was the case during last week’s elections in the United Kingdom. While the headlines heralded the Labour‘s landslide victory, some of the party’s losses resulted in gains for independent candidates who made Gaza a major campaign issue.
Read MoreA release of the Republican National Convention’s (RNC) platform reveals a potential shift in the party’s focus on a federal abortion ban. The announcement came hours after the RNC’s platform committee met on Monday.
Read More(ANALYSIS) A Louisiana bill signed into law on June 19 requires displays of the Bible’s revered Ten Commandments in all public classrooms, even at the university level. Religious and nonreligious citizens immediately joined national lobbies in a federal court complaint that the law must be overturned for violating the U.S. Constitution’s ban on “establishment of religion” by the government.
Read MoreThe timing was awkward, to say the least, for the recording of this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Lutheran Public Radio listeners who heard this chat live heard us discussing an alleged “debate” between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump that had not yet taken place. Ditto for anyone who immediately downloaded the Issues, Etc., audio file.
Read MoreIdaho Republicans have increasingly disagreed over how far to take these efforts. Capitol police in Boise had to intervene in a 2022 fight over proposed “parental freedom” legislation that would have created a $1,000 fine if a school didn’t give parents what they want. This year, two prominent far-right Republicans were recorded quarreling over the party’s direction that illustrates “a fracture among key far-right figures in Idaho politics, in a state where many races turn on contests of conservative purity.”
Read MoreThe speakers that took to the stage at MIT this past week addressed a series of issues surrounding AI, including how it impacts a number of areas such as communications, entertainment, healthcare, politics, climate change and the military. In fact, speakers talked about the numerous potential pitfalls in a world where AI is becoming more ubiquitous.
Read More(ANALYSIS) The field of religion and politics presents me with a whole bunch of combinations of folks who would clearly fall into this cross pressured category. I wanted to focus on one today that may be the most incongruent — people who identify as atheist or agnostic on the religion question but then say that they are Republicans.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Here are a few added observations to Religion Unplugged’s continued reporting this election year on vigorous agitation against “Christian Nationalism” as a threat to American democracy, with “White” often added to signal racial animus. This accompanies heavy breathing overall about fusing religion with politics in multiplied events, books, articles, Internet postings and broadcast punditry.
Read More“We must fight Christian nationalism. It’s what fueled Jan. 6 and the pews in our churches, every Sunday, are filled with them.” That isn’t the only time I’ve heard that ominous warning offered up by an earnest, well-weaning pastor, non-profit leader or Christian influencer. It’s shaped by a narrative repeated often by the press, echoed in a seemingly unlimited new genre of books and accepted as gospel even by many people of faith.
Read MoreDespite opposition from Catholic bishops across the continent, the European Union voted on Thursday to enshrine access to abortion as a “fundamental right” in its charter. The proposal — approved 336 votes for to 163 against — was passed in Brussels with support coming primarily from left-wing and centrist members.
Read More(OPINION) We must learn the painful lessons from the last eight years, during which time many of us became better known as supporters of Trump, if not apologists for Trump, than as followers of Jesus. In doing so, we deeply damaged our witness and drove many Americans, especially young Americans, away from Jesus.
Read More(EXCERPT) Mark David Hall’s new book, “Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church,” shows that Christian nationalism does not, as its critics claim, pose “an existential threat to American democracy and the Christian church in the United States.” As well, it critiques the handful of Americans who advocate for Christian nationalism.
Read MoreIn the works are a humanitarian welcome center in Tapachula — a gateway at the Guatemalan border — for migrants of all nationalities, and Haitian-language church plants in Tapachula and Monterrey near the southern U.S. border.
Read MoreWhile a majority of American evangelicals may be united by fundamental spiritual beliefs, they are by no means in agreement on a variety of hot-button subjects, according to a new study. Eight months before the 2024 presidential election that will feature a rematch between President Biden and Donald Trump, the report brings into sharper focus what evangelicals think about a host of issues that could impact the election.
Read More(OPINION) Given the insistence of this party that it is based on Christian values, it is worth exploring what those values are, is there a coherent set of ideas that this party stands for, and how these values and ideas relate to something we could meaningfully call Christianity.
Read More(REVIEW) Tell-all books have become a staple of our political conversation. They give readers a chance to see what took place in private during some of history’s most trying times. That’s the case of former Vice President Mike Pence’s new memoir about his life and time in the White House with former President Donald Trump.
Read More(ANALYSIS) Polls show that voters care more about inflation, but Democrats are hoping that talking up abortion will get out their base. Abortion, however, isn’t just a political issue. As President Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic, promises to make abortion a federal right should Democrats keep a majority, tension among him and prominent U.S. bishops has heated up again.
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