People always ask, “What would Jesus do?,” but in America today, it’s impossible to know. And that’s because there are (at least) two prevailing views of God at work in our public and political conversation. It would not be an exaggeration to say that when you pull the lever this November, you will not just be voting for president. You …
“We worship an awesome God in the blue states!” That was Barack Obama in 2004, not yet a U.S. senator, at the Democratic National Convention. And for the next four years, he did something extraordinary. He convincingly articulated a set of American values for the center-left. “Values” were not something God gave to Republicans in exchange for their opposition …
New scholarship on the Good Book’s naughty bits and how it deals with adultery, divorce, and same-sex love. The poem describes two young lovers aching with desire. The obsession is mutual, carnal, complete. The man lingers over his lover’s eyes and hair, on her teeth, lips, temples, neck, and breasts, until he arrives at “the mount of myrrh.” He rhapsodizes. …