Not long before Britons voted in a referendum to leave the European Union, I wrote an Anxious Bench post surveying some Christian statements about “Brexit.” Now that it’s been a week since that vote, I thought I’d share a few responses and postmortems from and about British Christians: • Earlier surveys had predicted that practicing Christians would be the religious group most likely to … More British Christian Responses to Brexit
I’m going to push back my usual Saturday links wrap until tomorrow. It’s proven impossible to ignore what happened in Britain this week, even though I’m not sure I actually have a lot of help to offer people wondering just what Brexit is or why it matters. I can’t explain just why the European Union has … More Scattered Thoughts on Brexit
I didn’t expect to write two posts on my first day on the job at The Anxious Bench. But while the first one was actually drafted last Thursday and Friday, Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando left me feeling like I might have something more to say. So in this afternoon’s post, I attempted to reflect on what it means … More How Can Christians Love Their LGBT Neighbors? Start by Learning Their History
In 1975 Great Britain held a referendum on its 1973 admission to what was then still the European Economic Community. By a two-to-one margin, British voters ratified their country’s new role in Europe. In nine days, they will revisit that decision with another referendum, one that could well end with Britain negotiating a withdrawal from the European … More British Christians Debate “Brexit”
Like everyone, I’m stunned and grieved by the news from Orlando yesterday. I’m not sure I have anything useful to say… except to repost what I shared the last time there was a mass shooting on anything like this scale. Sadly, I only had to go back seven months in my archive to find that post. It … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: “Thoughts and Prayers”
I haven’t written a lot about the Democratic side of the 2016 presidential election. (Frankly, if it weren’t that the Republicans had picked the nominee they apparently they have picked, I wouldn’t be writing much about them either.) But I don’t think I ought to let the week go by without saying something about what Hillary Clinton … More Seeing the Election through My Daughter’s Eyes
The first rule of driving traffic to your blog is to give each post an eye-catching title, since that’s as far as most potential readers will get. But I’m going to leave this one untitled because I don’t want anyone offering a knee-jerk reaction to a five- or six-word headline. See, this one is about Donald Trump. And … More Untitled
I observed late last month that the candidacy of Donald Trump should push pastors — and others looked to for pastoral counsel — to take up the work of political theology and help their parishioners answer questions about Christian participation in politics. With the Iowa caucuses just hours away, at least one such question has come … More What Qualities Should Christian Voters Seek in Political Candidates?
“We live in a political world,” Bob Dylan once sang, “Where mercy walks the plank.” It’s a world, after all, where even a democratic socialist promises a “merciless” response to a vicious attack. Where a leading Republican presidential candidate can be criticized by a leading conservative columnist for engaging in a kind of discourse “marked by what you … More Oh Mercy
For national anthem buffs like me, it doesn’t get much more exciting than this! Yes, earlier today the British parliament took a step towards England adopting its own national anthem, as opposed to using “God Save the Queen.” The sponsor of the bill, a Labour MP named Toby Perkins, noted the tension between British and national identity … More A New English National Anthem?
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