electoral politics

We should limit political activity by churches—but not speech from the pulpit.

Trump complains that tax-exempt rules require religious nonprofits to be silent on politics. He’s wrong.

As this campaign season reels recklessly, leaving a wake of increasing intolerance, those holding differing opinions can find little common ground. Past seasons of “come, let us reason together” have disappeared; unreasoned assertions from the chronically ignorant now dominate the increasingly purchased airwaves. Little from any side appears balanced or fair. We craft dollar-driven hegemonies of self-satisfied ignorance, cultures of the titillated and thoughtless. Where we once enshrined the ideals of freedom, we now erect a golden calf of contempt atop a tower of babble. Call it the gospel according to the uninformed.

When creed gives way to screed, who speaks into our opinionated age with a staid voice of wisdom?

Trump does well among those who identify as evangelical—but lack deep formation in faith. Formation fixes people’s eyes on higher things.

Something subtle and remarkable has happened in American politics—and, it seems, in democracies across the developed world. The big arguments over what the state owes the people, in terms of services and public welfare, have been somewhat eclipsed. Now the focus is on who counts as people in the first place.

At a moment when the spotlight shines on those who say the most outrageous things, it's worth noting Bernie Sanders's approach at Liberty.

Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that contemporary American politics have taken an extreme turn that has all but eliminated bipartisanship and compromise.

On election day, the Republicans will keep the House, the Democrats may lose the Senate, and 1,000 more immigrants will be deported.

At a conference on theology and politics at Wheaton College earlier this month, a speaker described a world run by economic elites who pursue their own interests. These elites dominate both political parties in the United States, he noted. 

In the question-and-answer period, a student at the evangelical college asked what then should be done, given such an oppressive system. The speaker advised the student not to put much hope in electoral politics.

On Nov. 6, our church building was both a polling place and a place for worship. At some point I began to see the latter as the main event.

The nation's changing racial and ethnic profile will bring political change. But we can also expect it to elicit fear and resistance.

The primary problem with American political culture is that almost all of our scrutiny goes to the human beings running for president.

"Between now and Election Day," writes Peter Beinart, "anti-Mormonism is going to be the Democratic Party’s constant temptation for one simple reason: there are votes in it." I'm not sure I'd call it the party's "constant temptation," but Beinart is certainly right that bigotry against Mormons remains a politically potent force in the U.S., and that the Democrats aren't above exploiting it.

But is Beinart right that the Democrats have a bigger religious bigotry problem here than the Republicans do?

My wife and I have been joking with our neighbors lately about TV ads that a Super PAC supporting their cat, Kobie, might run against our cat, Owl. Now Scott Simon's reporting on an ad someone actually made.

"The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet." In an election year, this passage from Deuteronomy makes me feel slightly sick to my stomach.

The glory of American politics is that voters get to "throw the rascals
out"—whether or not they understand who the rascals are or the nature
of the crisis the nation is in. Very little could have done by any
government during this worldwide economic slowdown to address the high
unemployment, except more government stimulus, which is what voters say
they don't want.