“Treat the Negro as a citizen and a voter — as he is, and must remain — and soon parties will be divided, not on the color line, but on principle.” So wrote President Ulysses S. Grant in a message to Congress in 1875. As Grant biographer Ron Chernow points out in his recent book, this was […]
s the pope Catholic?” For at least a century, this was the way we Anglicans joked about anything that seemed too obvious to state. Now we must ask in seriousness whether the pope is a liberal Protestant. Early this month, an American theologian resigned under pressure from his post as theological advisor to the United States Conference […]
“What do you people of faith think you bring to our society?” That’s what I was asked while on a panel at a university a few years ago. The topic of the discussion was “The Role of Faith in a Pluralistic Society,” and it was a self-identified atheist who taught at the school who raised […]
Fundamentalist Christians will sometimes warn that any deviation from historic evangelical beliefs (however small) is a stepping stone toward full-blown atheism. In other words, Christians must accept that hell is eternal, the Bible is inerrant and God created everything in six literal 24 hour days. If you remove any of these doctrines, it won’t be long before […]
Over the past generation, members of the college-educated class have become amazingly good at making sure their children retain their privileged status. They have also become devastatingly good at making sure the children of other classes have limited chances to join their ranks. How they’ve managed to do the first task — giving their own […]
An award-winning journalist who broke the story of the group of Jewish women ejected from an LGBTQ march in Chicago last month has been reassigned to non-journalistic duties at the paper which ran the original report, the Windy City Times. Gretchen Rachel Hammond — whose June 24 story caused a national storm after she detailed how three women flying Jewish Pride […]
Last week, a Politico/Morning Consult poll on President Trump’s proposed travel ban on visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries revealed a somewhat surprising discovery: 60 percent of voters agreed with Trump’s proposed ban. That includes 56 percent of independents and even 41 percent of Democrats. The plan, however, has a distinct advantage: It’s the only […]
COLUMBIA, Mo. — In the fall of 2015, a grassy quadrangle at the center of the University of Missouri became known nationwide as the command center of an escalating protest. Students complaining of official inaction in the face of racial bigotry joined forces with a graduate student on a hunger strike. Within weeks, with the aid of […]
Omar Khadr has been tremendously lucky, all things considered. In July 2002, he killed U.S. Army Sergeant First Class Christopher Speer, a medic, with a hand grenade. The grenade also injured Sergeant Layne Morris, costing him an eye. Luckily for Khadr, however, another American medic saved Khadr’s life — all while working next to the […]
Suppose it’s true. Suppose that, at the end of the day, people of African descent have lower IQs on average than do other groups of humans, and that this gap is caused, at least in part, by genetic differences. Of late, since Charles Murray was all but physically assaulted when he tried to speak at […]
