John G. Stackhouse Jr.'s Blog, page 31

Evangelicals, Elites, and Alternative Facts

Molly Worthen, a reputable scholar of American evangelicalism who teaches at the estimable University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, suggests in a recent New York Times article that evangelicals have been leery of “fake news” for a long time now. She’s more … Continued

Some Tenebrae Musings

As the time for Tenebrae (Latin “darkness”) services has come again, one thinks of the shrinking circle of light in the Passion narrative of John’s Gospel. In John 12, Jesus holds forth to Passover crowds: “The light is with you … Continued[image error]

Should Muslims Pray in School? Should Muslims Even Go to School?

Canadian society faced another challenge this past month as a school district in suburban Toronto wrestled with the accommodation of Muslim prayers on Fridays even as critics called for suspension of all such religious services on school grounds. School board … Continued

Mike Pence and the Liberal Moral Police

American Vice-President Mike Pence set commentators across the cultural spectrum all a-twitter this past week as it emerged that he had observed for years what quickly became known as the “Billy Graham Rule”: he refused to dine or otherwise be … Continued

Anthropological Confusion, Epistemological Failure: Mainstream Media and Moderate, Orthodox Christians

A recent article on conservative trolls among the roiling White House press corps in The New Yorker can stand for a general ferment of fear and confusion among the Mainstream Media (MSM) in this era of Trumpian turmoil. What has happened to … Continued

“Babylon Bee” Bought by TBN & CDM, Repents of “Fake News”

Virginia Beach, VA (AP) — In an announcement that took the Christian broadcasting world by surprise, the publishers of online religious satire website The Babylon Bee said today that they had been bought by a consortium of the Trinity Broadcasting Network and … Continued

Avoiding Compassion Fatigue in an ADHD World

Remember Biafra? If you’re of a certain age—likely, 60 years old or more—you might remember magazine covers and TV shows devoted to the awful famine in Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. How awful was it? More than 3 million … Continued

Harrison Ford Teaches Us a Lesson

Harrison Ford has acted in a lot of roles. But recently, he played a part in a real-life morality play. And thereby he can teach us all a lesson. When North American public figures get into trouble these days, many … Continued

Why Spelling Counts

Students often complain about professors meticulously marking spelling…and grammar…and usage…and other sentence-level problems in their writing when, in the students’ view, what the professors ought to be focusing on is the ideas the students are proffering. “Shouldn’t the quality of my ideas be … Continued

The Cost of Free Speech on Campus

There is much to fear and loathe in the latest example of militant and violent campus intolerance. At Middlebury College in Vermont, dozens of furious students (and, likely, others from off campus) shouted down a campus talk by a visiting professor, crushed … Continued