Bridging the Ecclesial, the Academic, and the Political
by Aram G. Sarkisian “Beware, O sinful land, beware;And do not think it strangeThat sorer judgements are at hand,Unless thou quickly change.Or God, or thou, must quickly change;Or else thou art undon:Wrath cannot cease, if sin remain,Where judgement is begun.” -Michael Wigglesworth, “God’s Controversy With New England” (Written in the Time of the Great Drought,…
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by Will Cohen When politics is as toxic as it’s become today in North America, Church unity would seem more than ever to require quarantining the life of faith from current political and social questions. Broader society’s most polarizing issues do get taken up eagerly, it’s true, in Christian congregations (of whatever tradition) that lean…
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When it comes to voting, I had always thought that there was never a way for Christians to vote with clean hands. Regardless of party or candidate, a Christian could not vote without being implicated in supporting principles that are counter to Christian faith. And that’s how it should be: Christian witness points to that…
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A recurrent refrain in Donald Trump’s 2011 book Time to Get Tough is that America is being laughed at—by China, OPEC, Russia, Iran. Compared to their leaders ours are weak and stupid. Trump describes Barack Obama’s approach on geopolitical and economic issues as “embarrassing.” Obama is said to “grovel,” “kiss the feet” of foreign leaders…
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Although there are, as many commentators have observed, social and economic factors at play, a perhaps more significant key to understanding the popularity of Donald Trump’s campaign is its sheer transgressive quality. In this sense I would suggest that Trump’s campaign is a phenomenon entirely in keeping with an essential dynamic of our cultural fabric….
Continue readingPolitics may make for strange bedfellows but the political alliances forged by many American Christians are worse than strange—they are ironic and self-contradictory. On the left, partisans draw on Christian teaching to pursue social justice, racial and gender equality, and responsibility for the environment. But in order to have a voice within the political left,…
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Public Orthodoxy is a publication of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University
