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Faith in a Time of Faithlessness 0
- November/December 2020
- November 1, 2020
Though not exactly known for this theological acumen, British Marxist Terry Eagleton did hit on something with this prescient quote: “There is a document that records God’s endless, dispiriting struggle with organized religion, known as the Bible.” Eagleton does have a point regarding what has been deemed, usually despairingly, “organized religion” (though what do you
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Crossing the Rubicon 0
- November/December 2020
- November 1, 2020
A Book Review . . .Reaganland: America’s Right Turn, 1976-1980. Rick Perlstein. Alarmed at what they saw as the decay of morality in the nation, religious fundamentalists John Conlon and Bill Bright in 1976 organized a group of activist protestants entitled the Christian Freedom Foundation. Previously the Southern Baptist Association sought to keep religion out
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Poor Tom 0
- November/December 2020
- November 1, 2020
When Thomas Paine died in 1809, Quakers, whom he identified with, refused his wish to be buried in one of their graveyards. Their refusal stemmed from Paine’s attacks on organized religion in general and Christianity in particular. Instead, this best-selling pamphleteer, whom John Adams called “the father of the American Revolution,” without whose “pen” “the
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Theoretical Freedoms 0
- September/October 2020
- September 1, 2020
It is becoming increasingly difficult to reconcile this year of COVID-19 with anything but a bad dream. As the contagion moved from Wuhan, China, to parts Occidental, the lights began to go out. Even before the body count was beyond annual influenza proportions the unwinding of civilization had begun. Now U.S. deaths alone are well
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Roger Williams 0
- September/October 2020
- September 1, 2020
In the film Reds, Warren Beatty’s biopic of the radical journalist and, for a time, Lenin sympathizer John Reed, we first see Reed chasing a runaway horse-drawn vehicle during his time with the revolutionary Pancho Villa. At the end of the film this image emerges once again, where Reed, disillusioned by the Bolshevik Revolution, once
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The Preacher Who Wanted to Be President 0
- September/October 2020
- September 1, 2020
In every election from 1952 to 1968, though few Americans know it, a Pentecostal preacher ran for president of the United States. This clergyman, as Theocratic Party candidate for the nation’s highest office, promised to unite church and state, base the nation’s laws on the King James Bible, appoint leading churchmen to all Cabinet offices,
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