A couple days ago the New York Times published an opinion piece grandly titled “Trump’s Lies.” The article purports to chronicle “nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office.” The reader is then treated to a chronicle of dizzying length and breadth chronicling all the public instances where the POTUS […]
Donald Trump
Evangelicals, Trump, and the Death of Contrition
In this article I’d like to address one significant casualty of the stupefying support Donald Trump receives among Caucasian American evangelicals (CAE). (At 100 days into his presidency his job approval remained at 80% among CAEs.) And that casualty is this: the death of contrition. First off, what is “contrition”? Gerald O’Collins and Edward Farugia offer the following […]
Is it wrong for Christians to troll Trump?
Over the last year or two trolling Donald Trump seems to have become an (inter)national past time. Saturday Night Live and a host of late night comedy hosts led the way. In fact, Seth Meyers’ epic 2011 roast of Trump is reputed to have contributed to the man’s determination to run for president in 2016. […]
The Devil Made Him Do It? A look at the conservative Christian defense of Trump
Today I came across this article at The Stream titled “Trump is Under Attack, and Not Just by Human Critics.” The author, John Zmirak, senior editor at The Stream, offers a jaw-dropping explanation for Donald Trump’s woes: demonic attack. He writes: Given the profound evils that Trump has promised to confront, from Islamic terrorism to Planned […]
Did Stephen Colbert Go Too Far?
This past week Donald Trump had a bizarre interview (one of several) with John Dickerson of Face the Nation in which Trump derided Face the Nation in a sophomoric pun as “Deface the Nation.” (Of all the neofacist attempts to discredit the media this must surely count among the lamest.) Dickerson is an eminently professional journalist who refused to […]
Conservative evangelicals think Donald Trump is the next Constantine
The fourth century did not begin well for Christians. In 303 a series of edicts from Emperor Diocletian initiated an empire-wide persecution of Christians, a persecution that only ended years later when Constantine became emperor (312 in the Western Empire; 324 in the East). From that point Constantine began to adopt the Christian church as […]
This is Not Normal: The Importance of Satire in the Age of Donald Trump
One month ago Donald Trump tweeted a series of bizarre accusations that Barack Obama wire tapped Trump Tower during the election. The charge was complete nonsense. And yet, in the weeks that followed Trump’s surrogates have engaged in a jaw-dropping exercise in confabulation, attempting to find something — anything — which can provide some sort of corroboration […]
Contributing to a new political blog
Folks who like Trump or dislike politics will be happy to know I won’t be talking Trump in my blog anymore. Instead, I have become a contributor to Jeff Lowder’s new blog Opposing Trump and I just posted my first contribution today, “Revenge of the Haters: A Response to Kellyanne Conway’s Abysmal Defense.” So if you’re interested in […]
The Ethical Principle Behind #NotMyPresident
Over the last several weeks we’ve all encountered the hashtag #NotMyPresident along with the accompanying sentiment. The response has been predictable: Trump was elected by the electoral college, so he is president. And if you’re American, he’s your president, period. Yesterday conservative Christian radio host Michael Brown issued his own indictment of the #NotMyPresident crowd. In Brown’s […]
On Rejecting Expert Consensus: Don’t Blame Donald Trump
As of this evening, Donald Trump continues to challenge the consensus of 17 security agencies that the Russians were behind the DNC hacking to the end of influencing the 2016 election. Why does Trump deny this? Here’s his latest tweet: Need it be said that this is a foolish tweet? Trump knows nothing about the […]
Blood Coming Out of Her Wherever: On Donald Trump’s misogynistic war
In his opening monologue on SNL this past Saturday, Dave Chappelle made a joke about staying at a Trump hotel: “I’m staying at the Trump Hotel right now. I don’t know if he’s going to make a good president, but he makes a swell hotel suite, Imma tell you that. Housekeeping comes in in the […]
Trump: The Christian Conservative Case for Civil Disobedience
In my article “God Bless the Peaceful Protesters” I noted that Christian conservative radio personality Michael Brown had chastised the anti-Trump protesters who were obstructing traffic in several US cities. I then recounted that I had asked Brown whether he would extend that indictment to Operation Rescue, a prolife organization that has a long history […]
How to Pray for President Trump
During the election season, some Christian leaders prayed fervently for Donald Trump’s success, including this motley crew of Baptist and charismatic Word-of-Faith preachers (check out Trump’s crazy expressions during this very awkward laying on of too many hands): However, I confess that I did not pray for Trump’s success. But he won the election and now […]
You can’t make America great again because it is now better than it ever was
This morning on Twitter Michael Brown posted the following image with this description: “This is something we can all agree on”: Except I couldn’t agree on it. To be sure, I do agree with the importance of repentance. But I don’t agree with the Trumpian sentiment about making America great again. And this is because, for […]
