politics

A Season to Consider (again) The City of God

In March 2016, Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore wrote an article titled “Reading Augustine in an Election Year.”  Drawing on the principal theme of The City of God, a book some recognize, fewer have read, and even fewer have finished, the motif of “two cities” is no less important today as it was four year ago, for in Moore’s words, “it can…

Laughter and Comprehension: Reinhold Niebuhr and the Irony of American History

For the past several months I’ve been working on a chapter, “The Pilgrims and Religious Liberty,” to be included in an upcoming book: Strangers and Pilgrims on the Earth: A Quadricentennial Celebration of the Mayflower Pilgrims, 1620–2020. Months of research have brought some surprises, dispelled some myths, and led to the conclusion—which almost always accompanies honest investigation—that history is complicated. The nuances,…