The Threat of Christian Nationalism

Another of my columns from the Murphy Report.

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Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe;
Forward into battle see His banners go!

So go the lyrics to the first verse of Sabine Baring-Gould’s 1865 hymn “Onward Christian Solders.” Growing up as part of the United Methodist Church in Middle America, I recall singing this fairly blatant militant hymn from time to time. Of course I was always told the hymn should be interpreted as a metaphor for the struggle against Satan, sin, and our own personal demons (whatever the long dead author’s original intent). Christianity, I remember being taught, is a religion that strives for peace, understanding, forgiveness, and acceptance – despite its long history of contrary examples.

For the rest, go to my column.

The Irony of Intelligent Design

I recently started writing a column for the Murphy Report. The following is the first paragraph from my first column.

The great irony of Intelligent Design is that its success and development as an intellectual tradition can be neatly framed within a Darwinian evolutionary perspective. After all, our intellectual traditions and all their associated technologies are extensions of our behaviors, and therefore are subject to the forces of evolution just as our genes are. Two examples from different periods of human history will help illustrate this.

Go to the Murphy Report to check out the rest.