Weekend Reads 5/27/17

Republicans Are as Tainted by the Russia Scandal as Trump

Unless this story has a second act, McCarthy and Ryan will stick to the explanation that their Putin-paying-Trump speculation was meant to be a joke. But even if that part of the conversation had never happened, the rest of it, and the later briefing with Obama officials, tell a perfectly rounded story of congressional Republicans’ complicity in Russian sabotage of the Clinton campaign.

How Can You Call Yourselves Christian When You Don’t Believe in the Bible?

The Bible is an extraordinarily complex collection of texts, written and edited by various authors over great spans of time for different reasons and within different contexts. Interpretation of these texts is an equally complex process, and cannot simply be reduced to “believing” everything that is contained within the pages of the Bible. I don’t believe that bashing infants’ heads against rocks makes you happy (Psalm 137:9). I don’t believe that slaves should submit to the cruelty of their masters (1 Peter 2:18). And I don’t believe that women should be silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34). Does not believing those passages make me not a Christian?