On the religious roots of war and the Christian response.

Source: The Best of Christian Compassion, the Worst of Religious Power

The rise of global oligarchs and the internet, which enables those oligarchs to spread disinformation, has made significant numbers of American voters once again slide away from democracy to embrace the idea that the country would work better with a few leaders making the rules for the rest of us. In nineteen states, Republican-dominated legislatures have passed laws that restrict the vote and entrench minority rule, even up to allowing state legislatures to overturn election results. If that is permitted to stand, that minority can choose our president, and it is increasingly backing one single man, one individual, to rule over the rest of us.

Source: March 12, 2022 – by Heather Cox Richardson

Yesterday Russia announced a revised military doctrine, signed by President Vladimir Putin, that names NATO as the Kremlin’s main adversary and clarifies that Russia’s military reserves…

Source: Putin’s Orthodox Jihad – The XX Committee

Conservative evangelicals have failed to live up to the ideal of the reformation to “always be reforming” and as a result exists in an echo chamber of their own making. “Ecclesia Semper Reformanda est” or “The Church should always be reformed” was a popular axiom proclaimed by Augustine and then again later by Karl Barth. It’s a phrase that goes directly to the problem in conservative evangelicalism that it refuses to accept criticism both externally and internally. More times than not conservative evangelicalism sees any criticism as an attack and, therefore, dig their heels in to hold their position instead of humbly considering whether the criticism has any validity.

Source: Evangelicals in the Hands of an Angry God: 8 Theses | Eric Scot English

According to MacArthur, Gray’s sin was that she had decided “to leave her husband, to grant no grace at all, to take the children, to go away, to forsake him.” This, MacArthur emphasized, meant rejecting “all the instruction and counsel of the elders, all instruction from the Word of God.”MacArthur then encouraged the church to pray for Eileen and to “treat her as an unbeliever—for all we know, she may be.”

Source: EXCLUSIVE: MacArthur Shamed, Excommunicated Wife of Child Abuser

This was a historic day in a historic week. This afternoon, President Joe Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to the Supreme Court. “For too long, our government, our courts haven’t looked like America,” Biden said in a speech introducing Jackson. “I believe it’s time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation with a nominee of extraordinary qualifications, and that we inspire all young people to believe that they can one day serve their country at the highest level.”

Source: February 25, 2022 – by Heather Cox Richardson