At home it’s a show trial. What about the rest of the world? “Your graphic of the Flag of this great Nation is unacceptable,” began @ronwilliamswv’s tweet blasting me. “UnAmerican. To be cute, it is depicted as flying upside down? Awful.” “It’s not meant to be ‘cute’ or ‘unAmerican,’” I Read more
Recently I was asked to speak to a civic organization on the topic of diversity. Diversity, in the current vernacular anyway, is one of those concepts that defies a simple definition. I was looking over my notes beforehand in Starbucks trying to think of concrete examples when I saw a Read more
Islam is not a religion of peace. This seems obvious to any sensible person. I said it in this article for USA Today. I said it again last year in a televised debate with Imam Zaid Shakir on Al-Jazeera America. The data bears this out. A Pew Research survey found Read more
If you are a sports fan then you know that we are in the midst of “March Madness,” that is, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. A committee picks 64 college teams and over the course of a few weeks those teams play until the field is whittled down to the Read more
Larry Taunton, founder and executive director of the Fixed Point Foundation, seemed almost breathless as he entered the Sunday school classroom at Highlands United Methodist Church to sign books and speak, passionate about the Christian principle he terms “common grace.” His book The Grace Effect spans two years, beginning and Read more
If you think the Super Bowl is just a big football game featuring large, sweaty men repeatedly colliding with one another, consider this: last year’s game drew 111.3 million viewers, making it the most watched event in U.S. television history vi— for the third year in a row. According to Read more
During the holiday season, Amazon released a new commercial. It depicts a Catholic priest and a Muslim cleric meeting for a cup of tea in what appears to be the priest’s home. It all looks very friendly with smiles, laughter, and even a close-up of the priest patting the imam’s forearm Read more
Christians Have Waged Their Own Holy Wars” was yet another annoying headline, this one in the Miami Herald. It seems that every time someone is beheaded, shot (by children, no less), or burned alive by ISIL, there is this inevitable handwringing over the violent history of — Christianity. Confused? So am I. Precisely Read more
How often do self-righteous football commentators have occasion to lament the behavior of modern players: Chad Johnson‘s reality show and “Ocho-Cinco” publicity stunt; Adam “Pac-Man” Jones’ nightclub incidents; Michael Vick‘s dog-fighting hobby; and the never-ending soap opera that is Brett Favre. The modern athlete is, they say, selfish, all about the money, and Read more
In July 2012 I was speaking at a youth retreat in the mountains of Tennessee when I received a call from CNN. It seemed that Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy had publicly commented on the issue of same-sex marriage and now the gay mafia were out to destroy him and his Read more