Our President in today’s Executive Order is trying to make it easier for churches and pastors to publicly support one candidate over another and push their congregants to do so, without fear of losing their tax-exempt status. This is probably a bad idea. It makes coercion and turning religion into merely a subset of political parties too easy, and it’s pretty easy already. Many say Evangelical Christianity has already sold its soul and become a mere subset of the GOP. I find it hard to argue otherwise.
I speak as somebody who talks relatively freely about politics and whose congregants usually know where he stands, for better and sometimes for worse. But we won’t be having any voter pamphlets at Genesis anytime soon. Continue reading
Let me tell you a peculiar story of Jesus, that very few long to hear. It might be my favorite of all.
President Obama said an astonishing thing last week: that we need to “reconsider” our support of Israel given our commitment to peace in the region and protecting the human rights of all; non-Jewish Palestinians included. His comment rightly made news and wrongly brought about criticism from the right-wing here. It’s the most constructive thing an American president has said about the never-ending conflict in years. 