As everyone who investigates me online knows, in my 30s I was a Christian Reconstructionist. Part of the appeal of that to younger people in that era was the specific blueprints for society and personal action that seemed to fill […]
Evangelicals
The Politics, or a-Politics, of the Evangelical Church in the 1970s
I came to Christ in 1973, at the high tide of the Jesus movement. No, we weren’t all hippies; the movement swept through secular colleges [even fraternities!] and youth groups as well. It is worth pointing out that my [deservedly […]
The Theonomization of Anabaptism
At the time of the Reformation, certain groups emerged which said that one ought to be baptized again [despite one’s infant baptism] when one came to conscious faith in Christ. Therefore, they were called Anabaptists, which means ‘again-baptizers’. But they […]
Time to Stop Using Political Terminology for Theological and Moral Views
Some portions of the American church, it is asserted, have gotten much more politicized in recent years. It is at the point where many want to ditch the word ‘evangelical’, because ‘evangelical’ is seen by the public as a political […]
California’s Trump-like Moment, 22 Years Before Trump: The Adventures of Pete Wilson
The United States on the whole has seen a rather sudden pivot, or so it seemed, of ‘conservatism’ from a coalition of religious or moral conservatives, economic conservatives [the latter were split into ever lower taxes fiscal ‘conservatives’, and deficit […]
Michael Lind: Can You Restrict Immigration Without Alienating Recent Immigrants?
Michael Lind is one of the most perceptive political and social observers of our time. He ‘scooped’ the Trump revolution, as I have said, before Trump even declared himself a candidate. And he has continued to be as perceptive. But […]
Opportunities for Positive Testimony
The candidacy of Donald Trump, and his takeover of the Republican Party, has split the American evangelical world and is, I think, purging it. But it is creating opportunities for positive testimony as well. The Daily Beast, far from a […]
The Religious Right Failed to See What Was Coming
We have repeated Francis Schaeffer’s warning about ‘personal peace and affluence’ often at Blue Kennel, but it’s time to do it again. He declared, back about 1970, that the ‘Silent Majority’, a term Nixon had begun to use, was composed […]
Do We Have Something to Offer Working Class Whites? An Open Letter to the CCDA Leadership
In the last couple of years there have been a number of stories about an increase in the death rate of working class whites that has not been paralleled among their African American and Latino counterparts. At the same time, […]
Authoritarianism is a Hot Subject Nowadays
There is a lot of intellectual fuss about ‘authoritarianism’ nowadays, because of the rise of Donald Trump and what appears to be the overthrow of traditional ‘fusion’ conservatism. A long essay by Amanda Taub in “Vox” is the most thorough […]