Articles categorized as Politics
How We Got to the Equality Act
The LGBT movement was shaped by the animosity of populist evangelical rhetoric and tactics.
Face masks demonstrate our concern for fellow citizens, clients
Until some four weeks ago, I had worn a mask in public exactly once in my life.
Only hard data will bolster gravity of local social-distancing orders
Our community leaders have been faced with the near-impossible task of determining how best we can prevent COVID-19 from ravaging our community — without simultaneously destroying the thriving economy that we have enjoyed.
Poly Parenting and the Value of the Family
The emerging discussion about in vitro gametogenesis and other types of multi-parent technologies demands renewed attention to why children do well with only two parents, and why those parents do best to procreate in the ordinary way, even with all its inefficiencies, burdens, and failures.
The politics of mask-wearing
There is a time for resisting the encroachment of tyranny—like while living beneath one. The order to wear masks in response to a pandemic hardly seems like the origins of a despotism.
Public reasoning in a Pandemic: Responding to Moore, Reno, and Littlejohn
This pandemic demands not only statesmanship from our political leaders, but clear-eyed guidance and counsel from our moral and spiritual leaders.
On being “Pro-Life” in a pandemic
Whatever else we say about the relationship between our responsibilities to protect the lives of those who are most vulnerable, we cannot pretend that these decisions are easy.
Infanticide debate reflects a new era for abortion politics
As states push for pro-choice protections, Christians have a growing obligation to defend the lives of babies born as “burdens.”
Will the Trump presidency lead to renewed dialogue between Catholics and Evangelicals?
Mr. Trump’s degeneracy and the old-guard religious right’s defense of it provide younger conservative evangelicals an opportunity to clarify the nature of their witness in the political realm. In the coming years, they will need to look for new avenues to proclaim the truth of God’s word in a fractured and broken world.
The adoption tax credit is not (necessarily) pro-life
A Christian notion of adoption begins with the reunification of the people of God with their Lord through their incorporation into the life of Christ.
Why I won’t sign the Nashville Statement
Either we recognize the “beauty of God’s design for human life,” or we embrace a sexual ethic and understanding of maleness and femaleness grounded in an “individual’s autonomous preferences.” Either our witness is counter-cultural, or it is not biblical.
How Evangelicals Invented Liberals’ Favorite Legal Doctrine
“The Evangelical Origins of the Living Constitution” makes a persuasive historical case that nineteenth-century conservative Christians legislating morality created many of the problems associated with twenty-first-century liberals.
The religious right is not a subsidiary of the alt-right
While evangelicals indisputably have a less-than-exemplary record on questions of race, their own history within the South is not necessarily identical or equivalent to the history of the Religious Right.
On the executive order regarding refugees
In an environment where our trust in public institutions and each other is plummeting, we cannot have too much care in how we measure and describe the realities we are depicting.
Pro-lifers who support Donald Trump are kidding themselves — and hurting the movement
But the truth is there has never been a pro-life case for voting for Donald Trump. And his comments on abortion at the final debate last week demonstrated that Trump doesn’t care much about pro-life issues — and that he doesn’t know much about them, either.
Should Evangelicals Vote for Clinton or Trump?
The Republic will only begin to be renewed when ordinary citizens, people of good will, begin demanding better than they are being given. A day will come when we are ready for it.
Recovering our confidence: four theses on social conservatism (#4)
The work of conservation isn’t the same as defending (with its connotations of hostility and warfare): It is the work of weeding out positions and attitudes that would undermine social stability, of cultivating and tilling the soil so that cultural flourishing can take root.
Recover intellectual creativity: four theses on social conservatism (#3)
One of the hidden yet potentially devastating costs of a culture war mentality is that it locks people into a framework and keeps them pursuing the particular questions that emerge from within it. If the point of our efforts is winning, then questioning our own presuppositions is out of bounds.