My Response to "American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel" — Still None, Still Done, as US Christianity Exhibits Total Lack of Imagination in Face of Pandemic

I did watch "American Heretics: The Politics of the Gospel." It’s an excellent film and great statement, and I highly recommend it.

At Long Last, Christianity Today Lowers the Boom — "It's Time to Call a Spade a Spade" — & Republicans Rage

Christianity Today was founded by Billy Graham, the most prominent evangelical figure in modern history. It is a vehemently anti-choice, conservative publication.

The second it called for Trump's removal, the entire GOP attacked it as "far-left."

THIS IS HOW CULTS THINK.

— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) December 20, 2019

I will publish the second half of Ruth Krall's wonderful essay "Bearing Witness: The First Step in Reconciliation" in the next day or so. Meanwhile, these developments, which have just unfolded, seem to demand commentary — and here are some good pieces I've read in the past two days:

If I Were a Young Person Seeking a Church Home for Myself, Why Would I EVER Want to Consider a Church in Which….

If I were a young person seeking a church home for myself, why would I EVER want to consider a church in which

The Long and Short of It: Evangelical Mulligans and Idiot Winds — Religion in the News

“Family Research Council head says that evangelical conservatives are willing to overlook Trump’s past behavior so long as he delivers for them on policy” https://t.co/4I5tGy4WcZ

— Jonathan Merritt (@JonathanMerritt) January 23, 2018 

"We don't care how many women he has abused, cheated on, or objectified. We don't care how many black people he insults. We don't care how many refugees he turns away or non-American Christians he sends back to persecution, as long he helps US." US = white, American, men. https://t.co/h7HS0Drp1A

— Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) January 23, 2018

Charles Pierce on Roy Moore as Exactly What Republicans Are All About Now: "Wake Up and Smell the White Supremacist Theocracy"

I'd rather have a pedophile in office rather than a democrat any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Pedophiles only screw kids while democrats screw everyone.

— Carroll Bryant (@CarrollBryant) November 10, 2017

This quote should be hung in museums of American history 50 years from now so people can remember why the Republican Party collapsed. https://t.co/P70omazXeD

— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) November 10, 2017

Charles Pierce hits the nail squarely on the head:

Trending on Twitter: #RoyMooreChildMolester — "I Never Thought I’d See the Day When Pedophilia Became a Divisive Issue Within the GOP"

Democrats are divided on single payer healthcare. Republicans are divided on pedophilia. #RoyMooreChildMolester

— Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) November 10, 2017

Trending today on Twitter: #RoyMooreChildMolester. At the New Civil Rights Movement website right now, David Badash has a good assortment of tweets from this hashtag. The tweet above by Dave Zirin is one featured in David's article.

"No Shoes Left to Drop," "Dark and Perilous Moment": Commentary on Trump's Firing of James Comey

Commentary worth reading (so it seems to me) about Trump's firing of James Comey:

America Magazine Features Confession of "Porn-Addicted" Priest: In Era of Donald Trump, Diversionary Moral Analysis

Among many disappointing aspects of the papacy of Francis: the stepped-up clericalism.

High-School Teacher in Tennessee Calls for Christian Discussion of Healthcare Coverage — and This Is Shocking News to Many Christians

Seriously urge everyone to watch this entire question from a woman at GOP #Obamacare townhall in Tennessee: pic.twitter.com/8mBGE1z6Rj

— MJ Lee (@mj_lee) February 10, 2017

To me the central message of Jesus Christ is pulling up the oppressed, the vulnerable, and the poor. You could apply that to a lot of things today. Black Lives Matter, people with disabilities, the LGBT community, the refugees, or health insurance. The central principle remains the same.

Lions' Dens Are Not Comfortable Places for Humans: A Post-Trial Report on Psychopaths and Those Who Prop Them Up

4 in 5 white evangelicals, 3 in 5 white Catholics and Mormons — "pro-life" voters — brought us the Trump nightmare.

I will not forget.

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) December 15, 2016

I'm back from the trial in which I testified. Back, and thinking about psychopaths . . . . As my friend Wendell Griffen says in a posting he made at his Justice is a verb! blog a day ago, "Reasonable people do not wittingly employ a psychopath for morally and socially responsible work."

Keeping the Moral Center Alive in Age of Retrenchment: Valuable Commentary from Last Week

There have to be very low circles reserved in hell for people who laugh while removing healthcare coverage from... https://t.co/YKS444hnRo

— Bill Lindsey (@wdlindsy) January 14, 2017

A selection of things I've read this week on disparate topics, but all bound together by a common concern to keep moral perspectives alive in discussions of public issues — at a point at which powerful forces in public discourse seek to obliterate the moral center (nor can you expect to hear such morally probing discourse in your white evangelical, Catholic, and Mormon churches, for the most part — since that constituency placed Trump in the White House and has set fresh hell into motion in the name of a "pro-life" ethic):

Brittmarie Janson Perez, "On the Informal Powers Trump Brings to the Presidency"

I'm honored today to have an outstanding, timely, minatory (as in, warning us of a threat we'd be foolish to ignore) essay to share with you from Brittmarie Janson Perez, entitled "On the Informal Powers Trump Brings to the Presidency." Brittie's essay follows:

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage: Celia Viggo Wexler Calls on Tim Kaine to Embrace Label "Cafeteria Catholic" — "Jesus Was a Cafeteria Jew"

Celia Viggo Wexler, a practicing Catholic and author of Catholic Women Confront Their Church: Stories of Hurt and Hope, calls on Tim Kaine to embrace the label "cafeteria Catholic" after Kansas City archbishop Joseph Naumann tried to pin it on him as a slur. She writes,

Archbishop Charles Chaput Attacks Joe Biden and Tim Kaine, Shills for GOP with Call for "Silent Apostates" to Leave Catholic Church

David Gibson writes, 

Quote for Day: "The Catholic Crisis That the Trump Phenomenon Has Highlighted Is Not Entirely Different from the Crisis American Evangelicals Are Experiencing"

Massimo Faggioli maintains that this "presidential election of 2016 is especially important for the Catholic Church itself for at least two reasons." "The first is that the reaction of the US bishops towards the competition between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump shows the paralysis created by the single-issue platform of official Catholic discourse."

Building Bridges Across America's "God Gulf" After Trump: Not Without Repentance

Spotted at Donald Trump's rally in Virginia Beach: Hillary Clinton's head on a stake. pic.twitter.com/iqnya3NeuF

— Jenna Johnson (@wpjenna) October 22, 2016

Wasn't that rally at a Christian university? 🤔 https://t.co/vfdMqSz2UV

— Sarah Posner (@sarahposner) October 23, 2016

Jim Wallis writes, 

"The Donald Took Evangelicals to a Very High, Huge, Really, Just the Best Vantage Point on Trump Tower and Showed Them All the Riches": Commentary on the Wreckage That is White American Christianity After Trump

Evangelical crypt keeper Pat Robertson excuses the misogynistic talk in Trump tapes as "macho" https://t.co/u1jIiDChpQ

— Jonathan Merritt (@JonathanMerritt) October 10, 2016

At Heart of "Odd Bedfellow of Trump and Christian America Is the Fear of the Loss of Privilege — Privilege of a 'White America', Privilege of a 'Christian America', Privilege of a 'Straight America', . . .Privilege of a 'Male America' "

Mark Silk at Religion News Service 

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush writing last evening in Huffington Post:

Twitter Responds to Trump's Lewd, Gross, Sexist Remarks: " 'I Think What Animates Donald Trump Is Faith in God,' Said Mike Pence YESTERDAY"

This recording of Trump should force him to withdraw his name from the race. He is simply not fit to lead. https://t.co/RjCLwWfk8L

— deray mckesson (@deray) October 7, 2016

Droppings from the Catholic Birdcage (2): GOP Will Form a Commission to Determine Whether Michelle Obama Plagiarized Melania Trump's Speech

More from the Catholic birdcage today as last evening's . . . GOP thing . . . is being discussed today at National Catholic Reporter: this is Agni Ashwin speaking:

The GOP will form a commission to determine whether Michelle Obama in 2008 plagiarized Melania Trump's 2016 speech.