Posts by Matthew Anderson
Against Donald Trump: why evangelicals must not support Trump
Trump is a not simply a charlatan, a huckster, a con-man, though he is all of that. He is also shameless. The more outlandish he is, the more he is rewarded with the only currency he cares about: attention.
Read MoreThe undead religious right: why I cannot support Ted Cruz
By all appearances, then, the Religious Right is as alive as it has ever have been. But this time, the grievances that animate them have flowered into an overt anti-politics, a willingness to trade the responsibilities of governance for the therapeutic cleansing of disruptive chaos.
Read MoreThe church’s “intersex” challenge
How should we respond to those who don’t seem to have been created male or female?
Read MoreThe distortions of progressive Christians: how religious liberty is in danger
The legal and social struggle between gay rights and Christian sexual ethics is real, but whatever challenges ‘losing’ the culture brings for conservative Christians, martyrdom is currently not among them.
Read MoreAnthony Kennedy was *almost* right: post-obergefell thoughts on where we go now
If family is something slightly different than friendship, than marriage is essential to the needs of those who never marry.
Read MoreThe end of sexual ethics: love and the limits of reason
Dianna Anderson (no relation) recently penned a very spirited critique of my recent essay on why I am opposed to gay marriage. I had been notified about the essay a while…
Read MoreThe system behind abortion: Planned Parenthood’s dehumanizing rhetoric
The practice of treating infant bodies as products in a transaction should itself shock us, regardless of who profits from it.
Read MoreTime for questions
Doubts multiply when we don’t allow time and freedom to question.
Read MoreOur culture of reading and the end of dialogue: an essay
Confronting a text whose meaning is initially obscure to us and being impelled to press onward, to work and think and wrestle, gives us the sort of discipline and training that genuine wisdom demands.
Read MoreWhy I am opposed to gay marriage
For it is in marriage—and marriage alone—that eros finds its consummation and discovers resources for its ongoing renewal. Eros can destabilize us and make us go topsy, but it also helps us see why marriage matters.
Read MoreThe limits of dialogue: q ideas, gay marriage, and Chuck Colson
The more confident we are in our knowledge, the more willing we can be to hear challenges to it.
Read MoreHope, failures, and young evangelicals: on what I said and didn’t
Suppose the challenges I have described are real and that there is lots of social and institutional pressure to change one’s views about human sexuality. In such an environment, those who have the clearheadedness to see the game afoot will almost invariably sound paranoid.
Read MoreNaive young evangelicals and the illiberal DNA of the gay rights movement
The central question facing our society is whether there can be mercy in the gay marriage debate.
Read MoreBehold! What Shakespeare’s words on mercy can teach us about Internet shaming
Our culture is risking a new, unrelenting pursuit of justice far more “Puritanical” than the Puritans.
Read MoreBehold! What Shakespeare’s words on mercy can teach us about Internet shaming
Our impulse to punish wrongdoings through shame is expanding in part because we lack shared authorities who can make justice public for us — and because so much more of our lives can become public. We are all judge and jury now.
Read MoreThe work of the church: once more around the “countercultural” question
If culture is in a decline, repeatedly reminding the world of the fact did nothing to reverse it.
Read MoreThe hope of the church and the world: once more on “countercultural”
The church’s distinctiveness from the world is a byproduct; it comes from ordering ourselves toward the person and work of Jesus.
Read MoreWriting as though history happened: on being countercultural christians
Having played the same song of decay so often, evangelical writers have a credibility gap with anyone who isn’t already convinced.
Read More