I recently posted about Trump’s efforts to interfere in the Michigan state presidential election results. I credited state officials for having more integrity than their national counterparts.
Now, it turns out that I spoke too soon.
I am grateful to my friend, Suzanne McDonald, professor at Western Theological Seminary, for sending me more accurate information and the ongoing shenanigans in Michigan.
Sadly, it turns out that the state Republican officials are NOT showing the integrity that I originally thought. Yep, they are playing Trump’s overturn-the-election games as well.
The story in The Detroit News, by Craig Mauger, is entitled, “Michigan House Speaker Floats Possibility of ‘Constitutional Crisis.'” Below is an excerpt, or you can read the entire article here:
Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield referenced the possibility of a “constitutional crisis” during an interview on Fox News Sunday morning, two days after he huddled with President Donald Trump at the White House.
The board features two Republicans and two Democrats. Many legal experts believe the panel has a duty, under Michigan law, to certify the results Monday. .
“The Board of State Canvassers participates in a very straightforward and perfunctory process,” John Pirich, a longtime elections attorney in Michigan, said in the groups’ press release.” Auditing the election is not within its scope of duties; the board is only responsible for reviewing the vote calculations and signing them.
By the way. Michigan state law requires the vote to be certified before an investigation into possible irregularities can begin. But, of course, since when has breaking the law ever deterred Donald Trump?
Many religious leaders are convinced that the answer to that question is YES. White evangelicals, for example, have been persuaded that president-elect Biden is a raging socialist who, by definition, is bent on eradicating Christianity from the public square.
Vice President Pence accuses all Democrats of religious intolerance suggesting that a Biden presidency will threaten our Christian liberties.
But, of course, in issuing these warnings Pence and others fail to mention that Joe Biden is a devout Roman Catholic and Kamala Harris grew up attending a Church of God in Oakland, CA. Her mother also took her to visit Hindu temples when she was a child and her husband is Jewish. There is no lack of religion or an appreciation of its free exercise on this ticket.
So, what’s going on?
It’s simple. The real issue here is the implicit redefinition of terms that has occurred through the court cases and propaganda campaigns led by the Religious Right. Nowadays, whenever a white evangelical complains about the loss of religious freedom in America today, he/she is actually complaining about challenges to longstanding traditions of Christian privilege.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
For a Christian in America, the Bible and the First Amendment give direction for the free exercise of Christian faith. Christians are free to gather for worship, to talk and write about their faith, to possess and to study the Bible, and to perform whatever other activities or “sacraments” Christians are directed to perform by scripture.
To the best of my knowledge there are no laws anywhere in this country prohibiting any of these religious activities. Christianity has not been outlawed. Group gatherings are not prohibited (those who think that church buildings housing many people in a confined space are the only legitimate place to worship fail to understand the New Testament; John McArthur ought to be ashamed of himself).
So what’s the problem?
The real issue is that Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, generally don’t want to play by the same rules as everyone else when they step into public space. The traditions of western Christendom have handed the Christian church many benefits that live on in our society today.
The popular face of these benefits appears in the preferential treatment Christian individuals and organizations receive in shaping the public square (i.e. Christian iconography in public buildings) and gaining access to the public purse (i.e. generous tax exemptions). Christian business owners also benefit when their for-profit businesses are given special consideration, exempting them from regulations applied to others.
The development of religious schools, hospitals, adoption agencies, and other public services is a wonderful thing. I am happy they exist, but let’s not get confused. None of them are required for the church to be the church. Neither is it clear why Christian entrepreneurs deserve special considerations not provided to others.
Our Lord’s Great Commission does not say, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. Build institutions, service organizations, and businesses wherever you can enjoy tax benefits and profit by special treatment excusing you from the standards required of others.”
As far as I am aware, the persistent warnings about the imminent loss of religious freedom in this country are typically complaints about a perceived loss or reduction of a Christian privilege.
The US Supreme Court ruled in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. that the white evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby should be exempted from providing health insurance coverage to their female employees for certain contraceptives. The owners of Hobby Lobby objected to those particular drugs on the basis of their religious conscience.
The court ruled in their favor, agreeing that the Christian owners could not be asked to violate their religious convictions by being required to include the full range of contraceptive options in their health insurance coverage for female employees (Note: although Viagra for men is always covered).
The recent case of the Little Sisters of the Poor Saints Peter and Paul Home v.
Sister Loraine McGuire with Little Sisters of the Poor speaks to the media after Zubik v. Burwell, an appeal brought by Christian groups demanding full exemption from the requirement to provide insurance covering contraception under the Affordable Care Act, was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington March 23, 2016. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Pennsylvania is very similar. The Roman Catholic spiritual order of the Little Sisters objects to all contraception, which of course is their right.
They, therefore, also asked for an exemption so that they would not be required to provide that particular piece of health insurance coverage to their employees. The Little Sisters also won their case on the basis of defending religious freedom.
Evangelicals and Catholics alike rallied around both cases, warned of government attacks on religious freedom, and cheered both decisions as victories for religious liberty in America.
Yet, to my mind the definitional over-reach on display in both cases is startling.
No one was forcing either the owners of Hobby Lobby or the Little Sisters to take any of these contraceptives themselves. Their own religious liberty was not under threat. They not being told how they could or could not worship, pray, gather together, or circumscribe their personal behavior.
Rather, in both cases the Christians wanted permission to enforce their beliefs onto others. They did not want to pay for a full coverage health plan that allowed others access to personal options that they (the employers) did not approve of.
Neither case was about religious freedom, not really.
Both cases fought for the maintenance of Christian privilege in the public square. They both exhibit the modern vestiges of western Christendom and the hold it continues to exercise over Roman Catholic and evangelical thinking in this country.
Both cases were about control and the ability of “religious organizations” to maintain that control through the smoke and mirrors of bogus complaints about government assaults on the freedom of religion.
As Trump’s Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos has worked very hard to dismantle public education in this country. She and her husband, Rich, have
Betsy DeVos
also been reliable, big-money donors to Republican politicians and their causes, including Trump’s presidential campaign.
This week journalist David Sirota published a report at his blog, The Daily Poster, detailing the DeVos’ substantial financial contributions to the two Michigan legislators now being pressured by Donald Trump to overturn the results of Michigan’s presidential election (Biden won).
The DeVos’ are utterly unscrupulous billionaires with a long track record of ignoring the law whenever it suits their political ambitions. They also lamentably call themselves Christians, and Betsy is a graduate of Calvin College. The place where I use to teach.
Below is an excerpt from Sirota’s article:
The Republican legislators that Donald Trump is relying on to overturn Michigan’s presidential election results have been bankrolled by the family of Trump’s current education secretary who would lose her job if Trump leaves office.
On Friday, Trump is scheduled to meet with Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield. Michigan Republican Congressman Paul Mitchell “said he expects Trump is bringing Shirkey and Chatfield to the White House to pressure them to appoint pro-Trump electors to circumvent the popular vote as well as lean on the state’s GOP canvassers not to certify the election,” according to the Detroit Free Press.
President-elect Joe Biden won Michigan by roughly 150,000 votes, according to data compiled by the New York Times.
The family of U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is collectively Shirkey’s third largest career donor and Chatfield’s fourth largest career donor, according to data compiled by the nonpartisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network. Chatfield also co-chairs a caucus of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), a group bankrolled by corporate interests, nonprofits tied to Trump’s judicial adviser, and the DeVos family as well.
Shirkey and Chatfield have previously pledged to honor the results of the popular vote. However, the Associated Press reports that “if Trump succeeds in convincing Michigan’s state board of canvassers not to certify Biden’s victory in the state, state lawmakers could be called on to select electors.”
That would put Shirkey and Chatfield in a position to boost or block a slate of Trump electors.
Key Lawmakers Bankrolled By The DeVos Family
During their careers, Shirkey and Chatfield have received nearly $140,000 from the DeVos family. Those donations represent only a fraction of the money the DeVos family has delivered to Michigan Republican legislators who could decide the fate of the state’s elector slate.
In the 2020 election cycle alone, Michigan’s Republican House and Senate campaign committees received nearly $1.2 million from the DeVos family members, according to data from the Michigan Secretary of State’s office. That made the DeVos family the largest donor to Michigan’s Republican legislative committees by far — the next largest source is a family whose relatives sent $125,000.
DeVos family members also delivered a combined $100,000 to a series of committees called the Chatfield Majority Fund (1-4).
During her confirmation hearing, Betsy DeVos pledged that she and her husband would halt their campaign contributions — but the Detroit Free Press recently reported that her husband has subsequently donated more than $500,000 to campaigns and political causes. The newspaper noted that the family has donated $1 million to a super PAC backing Trump.
DeVos also publicly campaigned for Trump’s reelection in Michigan, as Trump administration officials traveled around the country openly flouting a longstanding federal law designed to deter government officials from explicitly political activities.
[I am indebted to John Fea and his excellent blog, The Way of Improvement Leads Home, for drawing my attention to this study. I have excerpted his post below.]
“It is a very thorough study. Read it here. A few things the study tells us about White Evangelicals:
“7 out of 10 “white evangelicals” believe that most opponents of Donald Trump are “socialists.”
“9 out of 10 “white evangelicals” believe that the Democratic Party wants to transform the nation into a “socialist nation.”
“86% of African Americans believe racism is a serious threat to America and its future. 70% of Hispanics believe this. 68% of White non-evangelicals believe this. But only 36% of “White Evangelical Protestants” believe racism is a serious threat to America and its future.
“86% of African Americans believe economic inequality and poverty are serious threats to America. 68% of Hispanics believe this. 66% of White non-Evangelicals believe this. But only 37% of White Evangelicals believe inequality and poverty are serious threats to America.
“91% of Blacks believe “the police and law enforcement unfairly target racial and ethnic minorities.” 60% of Hispanics believe this. 57% of White non-Evangelicals believe this. But only 17% of White Evangelicals believe this (83% disagree).
“78% of African Americans favor some kind of “financial compensation to African Americans for their historic mistreatment of White Americans” (reparations). 41% of Hispanics favor reparations. 34% of non-Evangelical Whites favor reparation. But only 7% of White Evangelicals favor reparations.
“The authors of the report write:
“In sum, yes, there is a racial divide in America. Whites, Hispanics, and
African Americans do not share the same or even similar perspectives on
the history, experiences, and issues surrounding race, and the consequence
of this is misunderstanding, a lack of respect, and ultimately prejudice in
the everyday experience of Blacks and other minorities. But these points
of division are not equally or uniformly distributed across the population. The deepest and most consistent racial division is found between White Evangelicals and Blacks. Reconciliation begins with mutual understanding,
and by these lights, it is a long way off. (emphasis mine)
“. . . The authors of the study conclude that White Evangelicalism, a movement that once was at the center of American religious and cultural life, has become a “cultural other” in the United States.”
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign launch the Russia-Gate myth — a myth that lacked substance from the beginning and has been thoroughly debunked over time — intended to cripple Donald Trump’s presidency.
Now Trump has launched his own disinformation campaign in prophetically declaring the presidential election fraudulent before it even occurred.
His loyalists continue to hold to this position despite all evidence to the contrary. It is sad but not surprising.
The Democrats should have known. Those who sow the wind will reap the whirlwind. Conservative America is now prepared to undermine a Biden presidency as vehemently as Democrats worked to undermine Trump.
In politics, wild dogs always come back to bite those who released them. Pelosi, Shumer, and the rest should have known.
Though I often disagree with him, Fareed Zakaria puts it well:
On March 13 Breonna Taylor was murdered by Louisville Metro Police officers while sleeping in her bed.
Police had obtained a “no knock” warrant to search her apartment on the basis of a lie fabricated by the police officers. Three policemen broke down Ms. Taylor’s front door with their weapons draw and entered her home.
Eleven witnesses on the scene all testify that the police never identified themselves.
Taylor’s boyfriend was awoken imagining that dangerous criminals had broken into the apartment. He was correct in this assumption. Except these criminals all wore a police badge, which apparently gives any cop the right to do whatever he/she pleases to any African American, without consequences.
Grabbing his registered handgun, Ms. Taylor’s boyfriend fired once to let the intruders know that he was armed. The police fired their weapons 20 or more times into the darkness. Five to eight (reports vary) of those bullets penetrated Breonna’s body, killing her.
Ms. Taylor was an EMT who worked as an emergency room technician. She had no criminal record. A search of her apartment revealed none of the things the police were looking for.
Today, the 3 officers responsible for Taylor’s death were all found not guilty of murder.
One officer was convicted of “wanton endangerment” because his shots penetrated into the surrounding apartments.
Since no one (fortunately) in these other apartments was injured, we are left to conclude that property damage is a more heinous crime in Louisville, Kentucky than murder. Especially when the murder victim is a young black woman.
Once again, Louisville has proven that black lives do not matter in America. But, heck, we will happily let others die, especially if they are people of color, as long as the police will protect our property.
Another obvious lesson from this injustice is the need for all second amendment, militia types to sit down and be quiet. Repeatedly, we have listened to these “patriots” warn about the imminent dangers of heavily armed government officials breaking into the homes of innocent Americans.
Well, Ms. Taylor’s tragedy is the literal enactment of every gun loving, militia member’s worst nightmare. So, where are they? Why aren’t they marching through the streets of Louisville condemning government oppression with their long rifles at the ready, locked and loaded?
I’ll tell you.
They are sitting at home on their fat butts saying and doing nothing because Breonna Taylor was black. All they are truly interested in is “defending” their vision of a white America.
I fear that the majority of evangelical church leaders will also remain silent over the grotesque injustice of this entire affair. If they do eventually speak up, I predict that it will only be to chime in with Fox News propaganda to condemn the “looters,” and “rioters” who are “destroying property.”
Where have these church people been? In which hole in the ground have they buried their useless heads?
The wanton hypocrisy of such “spiritual leadership” knows no bounds.
Can anyone honestly wonder why we see African Americans – at least, those who are caught on film – running from the police or resisting arrest? The reasons are obvious. In far too many cases, the police are the enemy.
I would behave in exactly the same way if I were a black man in America today. AND SO WOULD YOU, MY DEAR READER. Admit it.
Jesus commands his people “to love your neighbor as yourself.” Love requires empathy.
Godly empathy requires carrying (or at least sharing) the other person’s burden — the burden of their oppression; the burden of unrelieved injustice measured out to them; the burden of grief, lament, and loss; the burden of struggling for righteousness, yes RIGHTEOUSNESS, on this earth.
This was the message of the Old Testament prophets. This was Jesus’ message, too.
Any so-called spiritual “leader” who does not already understand this point needs to resign now, for you do NOT understand what it means to live as a citizen of God’s kingdom.
Neither do you grasp Jesus’ ethical teaching.
I don’t know about you, but my next task is to check out the airfare to Louisville. I hope I’ll see you there, too.
It is long, long past time for God’s people to mercilessly attack the walls of American racism and injustice.
It’s long past time for a truly righteous revolution.
Just a few reminders for anyone calling him/herself a Christian:
Jesus of Nazareth brought the kingdom of God into this world.
Authentic Christians understand that living obediently in God’s kingdom takes priority over every other group, party, and allegiance.
Politics can never establish, empower, or extend God’s kingdom.
Jesus was not white. He was a Palestinian Jew with dark skin and (probably) kinky hair.
Jesus’ teaching and personal behavior overturned a great deal of the social and religious status quo normalized in his culture.
Jesus defied conventional legal authority on numerous occasions and paid the ultimate price. That is what obedience to God commonly looks like.
In this way, Jesus did not “respect” authorities that disrespectfully abused their power and mistreated others.
Jesus taught his followers to show mercy and kindness to everyone without exception.
Jesus taught his followers never to cooperate with wrongdoing, no matter how “official” its proponents.
Jesus taught his followers to stand for justice and righteousness on behalf of those from whom it is withheld.
Jesus insisted that his people give practical assistance to those in need of help.
Jesus rejected violence and taught his followers always to do the same.
Anyone who imagines that a political agenda, especially an agenda that sanctions violence, will somehow help God in accomplishing his work is sorely mistaken and is NOT following Jesus.
Leaders who do not condemn injustice, whether individual or corporate, do not understand what it means to live as citizens of God’s kingdom.
Neither do they understand their responsibility as leaders.
Jesus never exalts or approves of those who commit violence. He always condemns it.
Jesus always condemns any thought, word, or action (e.g. Tweets and Facebook posts) that demeans or dehumanizes another human being.
Jesus insists that his followers always uphold the truth.
Upholding the truth requires confronting lies whenever possible, confronting lies with truth, and challenging others when they are caught spreading lies among God’s people.
[For example, John MacArthur needs to confess and repent for the lies he has repeated about the Center for Disease Control and his potentially lethal claims from the pulpit (!) that the covid pandemic is a hoax.]
Following Jesus and living in God’s kingdom requires more than faith. Jesus demands faithfulness — a Christian virtue that seems to be in increasingly short supply in the church today.
Billy Graham’s granddaughter, Cissie Graham Lynch, spoke at the Republican National Convention last night to recite the predictable pablum of the Religious Right.
No, it was worse than that. Mrs. Lynch spewed rank idolatry for the Republican party. It’s the kind of behavior that got Old Testament Balam scorched by the Lord.
But nowadays, she is only one among many, for Trump seems to keep a kennel of false prophets on hand for every conceivable occasion.
Lynch opened her speech with a declaration on the importance of “our faith.”
She didn’t mention whose faith happens to be our faith, but the confusion was quickly clarified. She meant the pagan, American faith placed in our blasphemous civil religion.
This became evident as she listed her topics of concern. They were all the gems of Religious Right activism: abortion, the Supreme Court, and transgendered civil liberties.
Lynch’s flawless interweaving of (1) her descent from Christian evangelist, Billy Graham, (2) a rote recounting of Religious Right political priorities, and (3) the themes of American civil religion all stamped Mrs. Lynch as yet another immoral Siren working hard to bewitch the innocent, the ignorant, and the depraved into shipwrecking themselves against the rocks of bogus national piety.
Alas, if only the Christian faith WAS being persecuted in America today! Perhaps the genuine church could finally shed itself of this dead wood and dull-witted false teachers.
Notice that Mrs. Lynch’s examples of what she means by the Christian faith being “bullied” in the public square all consisted of threats, not to Christian faith or practice, but to the various privileges that church institutions enjoy at public expense.
I am fairly certain that Jesus never commanded his disciples to build religious institutions like schools or hospitals while demanding tax breaks or other special dispensations denied others operating in the same public arena.
Tax breaks and exemptions are nice, if you can get them.
Just as religious institutions (operating in a world unto themselves, ignoring the standards to which others are held) are beneficial, if you can build them.
But PLEASE stop pretending that those things have anything to do with either religious freedom or practicing the Christian faith. They don’t.
Just as losing those privileges has nothing to do with a loss of religious liberty.
So, Cissie, listen up:
No one is stopping you from following Jesus through the American public square.
No one is prohibiting you from living out your faith to your heart’s content.
Stop confusing religious privileges with religious freedoms. They are very different animals.
And please stop the horrible confusion of American civil religion with the Christian gospel.
I fear that you’ve set your grandfather spinning in his grave.
Today is the 75th anniversary of the American nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States remains the only nation to have used
Hiroshima after the bomb
nuclear weapons in warfare.
Brett Wilkins, an independent journalist who often writes for Common Dreams, has a good article at Antiwar.com which tells the story, I suspect, from a new perspective for many readers. It is entitled “Nuclear War or Invasion: The False Dichotomy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”
Every American should also know and remember that we used nuclear weapons offensively when it was unnecessary.
With the passage of time comes more and more evidence about the past.
Over the years, a great deal of evidence has come to light underscoring the
Nagasaki, September, 1945.
fact that almost everything Americans have always been told about America’s justification for wiping Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the face of the earth in two nuclear conflagrations are lies.
In fact, not only has the story always been false, it was known to be false at the time but was perpetuated as a part of a US domestic propaganda campaign.
Below is an excerpt of Wilkins’ excellent article:
Seven of the eight five-star US generals and admirals in 1945 opposed using the atomic bomb against Japan. One of them, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, later said that “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”
“Japan was already defeated and dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary,” President Eisenhower wrote in 1954. “I thought our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was no longer mandatory to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of face.”
Despite so much high-level misgiving, the US did “hit them with that awful thing.” The idea of giving Japanese officials a live demonstration of an atomic bomb on a remote island, proposed by Strategic Bombing Survey Vice Chairman Paul Nitze and supported by Navy Secretary James Forrestal, was rejected. The US was already destroying multiple Japanese cities every week; it was believed that such a demonstration would likely not have moved the Japanese any more than the ongoing destruction of their actual cities.
Throughout the spring and summer of 1945, Japanese officials increasingly sought an honorable end to the war. Although they had no way of knowing that the US was planning to wage nuclear war against them, they knew that the defeat of Nazi Germany meant that a Soviet invasion, first of Manchuria and Korea and then of Japan itself, was now imminent.
“The Japanese could not fight a two-front war, and were more anti-communist than the Americans were,” Martin Sherwin, an historian awarded the Pulitzer Prize for co-authoring a biography of Manhattan Project leader Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, said a recent webinar sponsored by over two dozen international peace organizations. “The idea of a Soviet occupation of Japan was their worst nightmare.”
John Fea is a professor of American history at Messiah University in Pennsylvania. Professor Fea has an excellent blog called “The Way of Improvement Leads Home” which I follow regularly.
Evangelicals tend to believe that “spiritual revivals” or “Christian awakenings” will provide the ultimate solution to all of society’s problems.
Christian media promotes this story-line regularly:
Protests aren’t the answer. Boycotts aren’t the answer. New laws aren’t the answer. What we need is a spiritual awakening! If everyone will only come to Jesus, then all our problems will begin to solve themselves!
Or so we are told, over and over and over again.
Professor Fea’s important post draws from the story of a great American, Frederick Douglass.
Douglass’ autobiography tells the story of his own conversion to Christianity, and why he did not see “personal conversion” as the cure all for the the sins of slavery.
Douglass was a slave who witnessed his master’s spiritual conversion. And then marveled at how the master’s new-found faith in Christ made him a more abusive master than he had ever been before.
Quoting from a recent biography of Douglass, Fea notes:
“A recent convert himself to Christian faith, although now struggling to
Frederick Douglass
understand whether God intended any justice on earth, Frederick witnessed the spectacle of master Thomas’s wrenching emotional breakdown and confession in that pen. Blacks were not allowed in the pen, nor in front of the preacher’s performances, but Douglass tells us that he imposed his way close enough to hear Auld “groan,” and to see his reddened face, his disheveled hair, and a “stray tear halting on his cheek.” Here festered the dark heart of the moral bankruptcy of slaveholders that the future abolitionist would make his central subject. . .
“Douglass converted this memory into angry condemnations of the religious hypocrisy of the entire Christian slaveholding universe, especially the little microcosm of Auld’s household, where the young slave now had to listen daily to loud praying and testifying by the white family, and to participate in hospitality extended to local preachers who were sometimes housed at Auld’s home, all the while enduring the good Methodist’s verbal and physical cruelty. For Douglass, the proof of any sincerity in Auld’s ‘tear-drop’ manifested in his actions. In his deeds and his glances, wrote Douglass, it was as if the pathetic master had concluded, ‘I will teach you, young man, that, though I have parted with my sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold slaves, and go to heaven too.’”
I am sorry, but the naive, ignorant belief that “spiritual revival” alone will solve all of society’s problems is merely another symptom of our crippling addiction to American Individualism.
More than that, it reveals an extremely simplistic view of both human nature and the work of the Holy Spirit.
All of these intellectual and theological mistakes serve as chains locked around the ankles of American evangelicalism. They prevent us from genuinely following after Jesus as we should.
When the church ought to be in the lead of the Black Lives Matter movement, talking about the Image of God and His new kingdom come, most evangelical leaders sit on the sidelines calling for more prayer and waiting for revival. The exceptions to this hackneyed response are extremely admirable but very, very few.
Sometimes the best way to pray is to get off your butt and march with those who suffer, publicly condemn the “masters” who want to control us, and work for social revolution — all in the name of Christ.
YES. White evangelicals, for example, have been persuaded that president-elect Biden is a raging socialist who, by definition, is bent on eradicating Christianity from the public square.
white evangelical owners of Hobby Lobby should be exempted from providing health insurance coverage to their female employees for certain contraceptives. The owners of Hobby Lobby objected to those particular drugs on the basis of their religious conscience.
that allowed others access to personal options that they (the employers) did not approve of.
basis of 
Pennsylvania. Professor Fea has an excellent blog called “The Way of Improvement Leads Home” which I follow regularly.