Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 25

Two Years in Prison for “Acting on His Religion”

A Mennonite pastor has just been released after spending two years in prison–the full term of his sentence–for what the prosecutor scornfully called “acting on his religion.” What was his heinous crime?  He helped one of his parishioners, a convert to Christianity who left her lesbian lifestyle, flee the country after a court threatened to […]

The Other School Walkout You Never Heard of

You no doubt heard about the nation-wide school walkouts on March 14 and April 20 to protest gun violence and to demand gun control.  Those got lots of press and had the co-operation of school faculties and administrators, who let out classes and encouraged students to support the cause.  There was another school walkout on April […]

Peter Berger on the New Class Struggle in American Religion

Thirty-seven years ago, I stumbled upon an article by Peter Berger, “The Class Struggle in American Religion,” that gave me a new paradigm for understanding my times and that equipped me to resist some of the pressures I was feeling as a newly-minted English professor.  In researching yesterday’s post, Status and Belief, on the “New […]

Being Moral vs. Moralizing

John Daniel Davidson makes a useful distinction between “being moral” and “moralizing.” From his article in The Federalist,  Blame the Left for the Rise of Moralizing in America: Dean Acheson, who orchestrated the Marshall Plan and helped create the North Atlantic Treaty Organizaation, had no use for moralizing in foreign policy. He once said that listening […]

Status and Belief

Christians talk a great deal about reaching the culture and influencing the culture.  But Christians often take a simplistic view of culture, neglecting the social dynamics of how culture works.  So I appreciate my fellow Patheos blogger Dean Abbott, at The Road Home for bringing up the role of social class and social status.  I […]

Getting Beyond Nostalgia for Reagan or for the New Deal

The Republican agenda has long been shaped by its nostalgia for Ronald Reagan.  The Democratic agenda has long been shaped by its nostalgia for Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal.  Donald Trump has shaken up the Republicans with some new approaches.  But the Democrats are still championing 1940s-style big government programs. So says Jonah […]

Backpage Knew It Was Trafficking Children for Sex

The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, which passed with an overwhelming bi-partisan majority, was signed into law by President Trump and holds websites liable if they are used for sex trafficking.  How did it get through, despite Silicon Valley’s strenuous lobbying effort against it?  Because two authors of the bill, Senators Rob Portman (R- OH ) […]

U.S. Attacks Syria–Has Trump Become a Neoconservative?

U.S. forces fired over 100 cruise missiles at Syria in retaliation against President Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against rebels to his regime.  The chemical attack killed some 40 people in the city of Douma, including a number of children.  President Trump had threatened to punish “Animal Assad” and ordered the missile strikes with […]

How Social Media Is Designed Around Sin

Trevor Sutton, my co-author of Authentic Christianity, has written a fascinating article entitled Social Media and Sin. Using Luther’s definition of our sinful condition as being “curved in upon ourselves,” Trevor shows that the very technological design of social media exploits the fallen weaknesses and the sinful proclivities of the self. Read what he says.  Then […]

Churches’ Contempt for Men

Matthew Cochran, a Concordia Theological Seminary lay graduate who blogs at 96th Thesis has a provocative article in The Federalist entitled If You Want Men In Your Church, Stop Treating Them With Contempt. Responding to a New York Times column by Ross Douthat, “God and Men and Jordan Peterson,” on the churches’ gender gap, Cochrane argues that […]