Loosely defined, the phrase “liberal arts” refers to courses in Western philosophy, theology, literature, art, and history, with science and foreign languages playing a real but secondary role. For the ancient Greeks and many modern Westerners, the liberal arts have been thought necessary to cultivate good citizenship in a government of the people, by the [ Read More ]
What hath Christian progressivism to do with Christian conservatism? Little to nothing, the authors of a new study argue. In One Faith No Longer: The Transformation of Christianity in Red and Blue America, sociologists George Yancey and Ashlee Quosigk contend that the differences between these two groups are so significant that it is time to regard [ Read More ]
The second line of the Lord’s prayer is, “Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Or, in paraphrase, “Please send your Son soon to set the world to rights, so that we can live under your loving reign, with no more sin or suffering, and in the context [ Read More ]
Political ideologies are a lot like individuals in that they tend to ascribe ultimacy to some aspect of God’s creation, rather than ascribing ultimacy to God himself. Once they have ascribed ultimacy to their chosen idol, they look to it to “save” their society by eradicating “evils” that threaten their idol. And “We the People” [ Read More ]
Politics in the United States has, for some time, assumed a binary structure. On one side stand the Republicans, many of hold to some form of social conservatism. On the other side stand the Democrats, many of whom hold to some form of social progressivism. But what many Americans fail to see is that conservatism [ Read More ]
Populism, as we noted, is not an ideology. Over the past decade, America’s emerging populism has paired itself in various ways with progressivism, conservatism, socialism, and nationalism, and yet it cannot be reduced to any one of these ideologies. Given that the majority of this website’s readers identify as some type of “conservative” on the [ Read More ]
More than any other time in my life, the past two years have caused me to reflect on the relationship of my evangelical faith and my political conservatism. Two years ago, I turned forty. That birthday caused me to consider the future direction of my thinking and writing, and I realized that I wanted to [ Read More ]
The past decade has made one thing clear to evangelicals: the social, cultural, and political ground is shifting beneath us. We are not “winning the day” with our vision of the good life. Although we have seen some incremental progress on the pro-life issue, we are experiencing consistent regression on other issues that matter most to us, such as [ Read More ]