Politics

Capital Punishment is a very controversial topic and navigating this tricky subject can be difficult. Because of this difficulty we must be humble when speaking on this subject. As I am studying ethics I have quickly come to find that there are very few simple and straightforward answers to many of the ethical problems we face and capital punishment (Hereafter CP ) is no exception. This means that we must have grace when speaking about these things and acknowledge where we ma

Note: This Facebook Comment/Blog article represents a significant shift in my journey toward being a more consistent Christian. Recently, I was asked to speak at Reconcile Church in Bloomington, Illinois on the topic, “The Image of God and the Black Experience.” In preparing for this presentation I encountered a number of quotations from great abolitionists and Civil Rights Movement leaders like Frederick Douglass, Henry Highland Garnett, JW Loquen, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr

A recent  article  by Presbyterian Pastor Tim Keller calling for an openness to both American political parties by American Christians has gained a lot of attention. Writing in the  New York Times,  Pastor Keller argues that the legacy of the Christian Church’s position on social issues does not fit into our contemporary political situation today. Keller  writes : “What should the role of Christians in politics be? More people than ever are asking that question. Christians c

Is "separation of church and state" in any U.S. founding documents? This is a popular claim among many in the U.S., but the answer is an emphatic "no!" The phrase "wall of separation between church and state " is not in any U.S. founding documents, but is found in a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists in 1802 -- well after the founding documents were written. Jefferson was addressing concerns that the Baptists had due to a rumor that the U.S. was going to f

Complaint: Dear Tim, I love you man but I don’t want my politics and my religion mixed. I look up to you for religious context and commentary because you are an expert in the field. Not politics. That’s just your opinions and I can get that from every Tom, Dick and Harry... but not Tim. - Sean Tim's Response: Thank you for your kind words, Sean. However, in addition to your pleasantries are statements that I encourage you to consider more deeply. It would be absurd not to

Question Dear Tim, My heart hurts with this whole Ford vs Kavanaugh deal. Something I can’t wrap my mind around is how 99% of people are 100% sure they know what happened. It’s a scary thing for me to consider either possibility and the precedent each sets: 1) an innocent man’s life/family/career is destroyed because of a false accusation 2) a victim of sexual assault gets no justice and is called a liar because she can’t produce evidence I watched both testimonies. Both

Okay, we covered quite a bit of ground in the first two parts of this mini-series and now we’re sliding into home plate. In the first article, I presented the idea that the biblical worldview provides a more substantive foundation for identity than the race-centric view of identity which appeared to be at the root of the riots in Charlottesville a few weeks ago. Our first step toward engaging my central claim was to review how the concept of race in our society does not align

In the first article of this mini-series, Charlottesville (Pt. 1): Of Blood and Soil, we explored the relationship between race and identity. I introduced the idea that the biblical worldview provides a more solid foundation for identity than one’s race. Our main premise was that the race-centric identity concept which in many ways define our society is ultimately grounded in subjective claims we make about ourselves and one another rather than objective truth’s about the wor

Not even a month ago America’s attention was seized by the violent and racially charged events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia. Reportedly, the citizens of Charlottesville voted to have a statue of Confederate icon, Gen. Robert E. Lee, removed from a public park. In response to this decision, an angry band of neo-Nazis, Klansmen, other assorted hate groups, along with more garden variety white supremacists descended upon the Charlottesville courthouse with tiki t

Continuing with the final subject in my series on the most influential of America's founders (see Washington , Jefferson , Franklin , and Madison ), consider some quotes from John Adams either from our founding period (1776-1789) or referring back to it. Here is a letter from Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 28 June, 1813: The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence, were ... the general principles of Christianity, in which all those sects were united, and th

James Madison, like several other founding fathers, wrote some things that didn't sound very Christian later in his life, but during the founding was solidly Christian. As any good judge will tell you, the meaning of civil agreements like constitutions depends on what the writers intended at the time they wrote it; not on what they wrote thirty years later. Just as it would be fallacious to say "Ronald Reagan was a Republican movie star" (he was actually a Democrat during tha

It seems commonplace today for entire groups of people to be painted with a broad brushstroke and labeled as being afraid or fearful. The word "phobia" or "phobic" is often attached to the end of another word which is supposed to represent a group who is scared of other people. So, what does it mean to be "phobic"? Consider Merriam Webster's  definition of phobia: an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation Ox

Christ Church Burial Ground is the final resting place of Benjamin Franklin and his wife. Four other signers of the Declaration of Independence are buried here. Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin considered himself as a Christian during the founding of the United States, but experimented with other religions (such as Deism) during other times of his life. His writings at these other times have apparently confused people like Richard Dawkins and Mitch Kahle into assuming this

The killing of Trayvon Martin was “9-11” for the African-American community. What do I mean by that? In the same way that there are some events in our personal lives that leave a bruise—loss of a loved one, a bitter break up, bad report from the doctor—there are collective experiences like 9-11 that impact us on a cultural level such that we are not entirely who we were before they occurred. September 11th was, of course, not the first terrorist attack in American history. It

Question Should Christians have participated in the Women's March the day after Trump was inaugurated? - Shawn Tim's Response Wow, what a tough question, Shawn! I must say that I initially hesitated to interact with this question based on the civil (or not so civil) war across America today. With that said, after pondering this for several days, I do think this is an important question to address. First of all, let me make it clear that I am not a politician or a political