Lifeway: Churchgoers Increasingly Prefer a Congregation That Shares Their Politics

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“Half of U.S. Protestant churchgoers (50%) say they’d prefer to attend a church where people share their political views, and 55% believe that to be the case at their congregation already….Around 1 in 5 (19%) now strongly agree they prefer to attend a church where people share their political views, up from 12% in 2017.” - Lifeway

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Kevin DeYoung: The Pitfalls and Possibilities of Being “Political”

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“I would love to see Christians pontificating much less about complex matters they don’t understand….But even if we did all that (and we should), we would not be free from politics. There is no category called ‘politics’ that can be safely quarantined from the category we call ‘religion.’” - Kevin DeYoung

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Lincoln, C.S. Lewis, and Our Politics of Passion

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“… the most troubling element in [contemporary American politics] lies beyond our mere partisan differences. It involves a distinctive politics of passion that could, if left unbridled, lead to the ruin of our experiment in republican self-government.” - Law & Liberty

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From the Archives – Why Christians Must Be to Loyal to Truth, Not Tribe

(Posted in July of 2020)

My thoughts below predate COVID-19, masks, hydroxychloroquine, or churches defying public health emergency orders. Last fall, different controversies were exposing problems in how believers evaluate conflicting claims and decide what to believe.

But those problems are still with us, and the current raft of controversies is exposing them even more painfully.

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Is Evangelicalism Due for a Hundred-Year Schism?

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“The specific issues are many, some comparatively new (critical race theory, former President Donald Trump), some all too familiar (racism and race relations beyond the one theory, roles of women, sexual ethics, Christian nationalism, church handling of abuse), all with a political edge.” - C.Today

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The GOP Needs Ideas, Not Grievance Politics

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“Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted, ‘The Republican Party is no longer the ‘wine and cheese’ party. It’s the beer and blue jeans party.’ …. As it stands right now, however, the party is much more about grievance politics and retribution” - Dispatch

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Conciliation With the Colonies

Edmund Burke, on moving his Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies. House of Commons, March 22, 1775

Below are excerpts from the first fifth of the speech. The speech is public domain. All 24,000 words are available at Project Gutenberg.

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Cruz, DeSantis Portray the Left As Demonic, the Right As God’s True Followers

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“You’ve got to be strong,” said DeSantis at the end of his speech. “You’ve got to put on the full armor of God. You’ve got to take a stand, take a stand against the Left’s schemes. You’ve got to stand your ground. You’ve got to be firm. You will face flaming arrows, but take up the shield of faith and fight on.” - C.Leaders

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