Religion

My soul magnifies the Lord,
    and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of
       his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call
       me blessed; 
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name. 
His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation. 
He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of
       their hearts. 

A few weeks ago I wrote about theologian Marcus Borg's classification of four types of faith. One of these types, assensus, is a faith of the intellect only. It involves believing something to be true in the absence of evidence. The next two—fidelitas and fiducia—involve actions of the will. These can be summed up by the English words "faithfulness" and "trust", respectively. The last one, visio, is best understood as a new way of seeing.

Evangelist Franklin Graham has called for a national day of prayer for the president next Sunday. In a Facebook post, Graham insisted, "President Trump’s enemies continue to try everything to destroy him, his family, and the presidency.

On the eve of midterm elections, some evangelical Christians are distressed at the ongoing reminders by mainstream media that, taken as a group, evangelicals are among Donald Trump's biggest supporters.

Journalist Terry Mattingly, in his Get Religion blog, attempts to give context to the oft-quoted statistic that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for Trump. Mattingly identifies six categories of evangelical voters:

The United States' largest Protestant denomination has become a slow-motion train wreck. Following the denomination's near-failure last summer to condemn white supremacy, and reeling from a decade of membership decline, the one bright light for the Southern Baptists in the era of #MeToo was that no prominent leaders had been named as sexual predators.

When physicist Stephen Hawking died last week, a number of Christian and Muslim apologists rushed to social media to proclaim that Hawking is now burning in hell. Evangelist Ray Comfort then had the audacity to express surprise at the reaction his Facebook post got from atheists.

According to Mark Galli's editorial Tuesday in Christianity Today, the biggest loser in Alabama's special election is not Roy Moore and the Republicans, but the Christian faith. The election, says Galli, shines a spotlight on an issue that has been "festering for a year and a half", ever since evangelicals flocked en masse to the Trump campaign.

Regarding support for Trump, Galli says:

Dr. Jason Lisle, who really should know better, claims the consensus age of the universe is based on circular reasoning.

It's one thing to make a formal declaration opposing white supremacy. But, Morgan Guyton points out, the words are meaningless if we are unable to recognize just how deeply white supremacy is embedded in Western culture, and particularly in Western Christianity.

Last week the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—the United States' largest Protestant denomination—voted to condemn white supremacy and its latest manifestation, the alt-right movement. Were it any other denomination, this would not be news—nor would a convention vote even be necessary. But Southern Baptists always been different from other Christians.