"These things are old. These things are true." With these words, Barack Obama reaffirmed America's commitment to "those values upon…
Barack Obama’s Book of Virtues
Christianity
Niebuhrian in the White House
Barack Obama is often described as some kind of Niebuhrian, a tag he has encouraged by describing Reinhold Niebuhr as…
Obama’s living virtues
Obama's list of virtues comes in pairs, and the pairings are mutually illuminating. I will, though, examine them not in…
Cheerleading for war?
One of the questions that plagues my study of American religion is why there is such a frequent close correspondence…
Not a foundation but a raft
Why should we conclude that God's love for human beings takes the form of attachment love as opposed, for instance,…
Justice and rights-talk in liberal democracies
Nicholas Wolterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs is a profoundly ambitious book. His normative aspiration is nothing less than "speaking up…
Rehabilitating religious rights talk
In December, we celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Adopted by the United Nations General…
Justice and theism
The central claim of Nicholas Wolsterstorff's Justice: Rights and Wrongs is that justice is based on natural human rights that inhere…
So, what about the Christian lobby?
You see, the interview on Al Arabiya confirms that the politics of fear can safely endure, barely disguised as the…
A public theologian
Americans have elected the most theologically astute president since Jimmy Carter.