Public Religion News Digest, October 18, 2019

Islamophobia: A Bipartisan Xenophobia in American Politics

Liberal Islamophobia? Not as bad or as explicit as on the Right, but it is there.

The Deepening Crisis in Evangelical Christianity

“[A]s a starting point, evangelical Christians should acknowledge the profound damage that’s being done to their movement by its braided political relationship—its love affair, to bring us back to the words of Ralph Reed—with a president who is an ethical and moral wreck. Until that is undone—until followers of Jesus are once again willing to speak truth to power rather than act like court pastors—the crisis in American Christianity will only deepen, its public testimony only dim, its effort to be a healing agent in a broken world only weaken.”

For Churches, a Temptation to Sell

“Facing a shortage of conventional parcels, developers are taking aim at structures with stained glass and bell towers, whose owners are often saddled with mounting bills and declining membership.”

The President’s Twitter feed where he sounds as if he is claiming superhuman, if not divine, attributes

Note both the claim to unmatched wisdom and his ability to completely destroy the economy of Turkey.

It’s 2040. We Need to Keep Abortion Legal in New York.

Do you think that Margaret Atwood’s fictional Gilead is too frighteningly close to current trends? You’ll have more to support that concern in this “op-ed from the future.”

Governor proclaims a day of prayer, humility, and fasting.

The Tennessee governor declared a day of prayer, fasting, and humility for October 10^th. In modern times, we yawn at a presidential proclamation for Thanksgiving Day. But thanksgiving days in earlier times were staggered with days proclaiming fasts. It is interesting that we don’t think of thanksgiving proclamations as violating the First Amendment but with do with a fast declaration. [Although, it is also interesting to compare contemporary Thanksgiving proclamations. Here is one from the Obama years, and here is from Trump in 2018.]

Trump White House Opens Doors to Christian, conservative colleges

One of the huge success stories on the Christian Right is their building, over decades, a massive farm system for preparing like-minded persons for civic and government positions.