Jonathan Kozol’s recent Harper’s essay, “Still Separate, Still Unequal: America’s Educational Apartheid” is one of those pieces that makes you want to just crawl into a corner and sob–right after you find somebody to shout at because of the terrible pain in your gut. Documenting years of visits and conversations with children, teachers, principals, and…
In the face of al-Quaeda’s attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, the White House’s admonition was clear: “Shop.” The one thing the enemy won’t destroy is our freedom to go the mall. And now, in the wake of a national tragedy, we find a similarly ridiculous focus on the market and merchandise. From the…
I’ve enjoyed being a part of a new venture launched by Stephen Bush called “Generous Orthodoxy: Think Tank.” This creates the space for some excellent conversation between evangelicals scholars, graduate students, and practitioners who want to both push the envelope but also remain faithful to the tradition. It includes some of the sharpest young voices…
I was glad, or at least relieved, to see evangelical leaders–including even Al Mohler–roundly denounced Pat Robertson’s remarks about assassinating Hugo Chavez. And Christian charity also requires me to acknowledge that, after some curious backpedalling (in which Robertson seemed to become a deconstructionist as he waxed eloquent about the dissemination of meaning around the phrase…
World Youth Day in Cologne looked like a stunning event–a richly international gathering of Catholic youth from around the globe. While they displayed some of the exuberant features of North American youth culture (I saw “the wave” making its rounds at one point), one must also be struck at how radically different this Catholic youth…
I’m not one to caricature the Religious Right by taking Pat Robertson as the norm. However, that Robertson could–on air on the 700 Club—openly call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (one of several leftist leaders in South America), and that this wouldn’t cause an uproar amongst religious convervatives–such a scenario surely is…