… Over the past 50 years, a significant number of conservative Christians have promoted the idea that God has called America to support Israel at all costs, even if it means invading nations who might threaten Israel and effectively waging perpetual war in the Mid-East for the sake of weapons industry profits. These Evangelicals, led… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Republican Refutations
Refuting the Republican Anti-Welfare Stance
[Photo – a rendition of Reagan’s “Welfare Queen” myth] [The following article is an excerpt from my book, Rescuing Religion from Republican Reason”] Opposite Evil: Freeloading Nearly all of us have known some freeloaders. Sometimes they’re our family members. Sometimes they’re our co-workers. Sometimes they’re the employees we manage. At home, they do what they… Read more »
How Trump can use the presidency to enrich himself
A Trump-supporting relative at a 2015 Christmas gathering asked me, knowing that I am not a Trump supporter, “So what do you think Trump’s motives are for wanting to become president? I think he really wants to make America great again.” At the time, I answered that I can’t read minds, that I suspect it’s… Read more »
How Republicans are Killing Evangelism
As a student at Belmont University in the early 1990s, I was somewhat active in the local church’s mission to reach out to Kurdish Muslim refugees with the love of Christ. The refugees had fled the Kurdistan region of Iraq and, for some reason, had relocated to Nashville, Tennessee. A good friend of mine, who… Read more »
Times are good…the media just won’t let you see it that way
… As we approach the 2016 election, there’s a conventional wisdom floating about that says the reason politically-extreme candidates are so popular now is that the population is so frustrated; they just can’t take it anymore, so they insist upon drastic change. To that I ask, “What exactly is it that Americans can no longer… Read more »
Why the “We need assault weapons to protect ourselves from government tyranny” argument is invalid
After the mass school shooting at Sandy Hook in late 2012, a fellow gun owner in my church agreed with me that legalized guns, such as those used for hunting, are fine, but nobody needs a gun that can kill 30 people in 30 seconds. Within earshot was a devout Republican Christian, however, who chimed… Read more »
The ISIS threat is hysterically over-hyped, and here’s why…
According to the CDC, the United States averages about 16,000 murders per year (that’s 160,000 per decade). And few people seem to be terribly concerned about it. The Republicans refuse to expand background checks or limit the number of bullets in a clip for a semi-automatic weapon, as if having to change a clip more… Read more »
What Republicans really mean by the term “Radical Islam”
Many Republican politicians and pundits say we need to kill ALL “Radical Muslims,” because that’s who our war is really with. They complain that Obama won’t call our enemies by their name (of course, their names are ISIS, Al Qaeda, Jihadists, terrorists, etc., which is what he calls them), and that he refuses to define… Read more »
The biblical tithe is really a capital gains tax, contrary to what Republicans say
… Even among Republicans, Ben Carson has been stirring up some controversy with his intent to model the U.S. tax code after the biblical tithe. His reasoning from his book, “One Nation”: Carson: “No group of American citizens should be singled out for extra taxation and no group should be spared taxation on a federal… Read more »
Why Capitalism isn’t sacred; and why modifying it isn’t evil
… [The following article is an excerpt from my book, “Rescuing Religion from Republican Reason.”] Imagine you’re the inventor and manufacturer of the first bicycle. The bike is fast with a smooth ride. People love it. As soon as you make one, someone buys it. But there’s one flaw: Cyclists return to you, complaining of… Read more »