The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony weren’t the first Europeans to settle in North America, nor were they the first permanent English colonists. But because of our annual celebration of Thanksgiving, and our hazy images of their 1621 meal with Native Americans, the Pilgrims have become the emblematic colonists in America’s national memory. Although modern Thanksgiving has become largely non-religious — focused more on food, family, and football than explicitly thanking God — the Pilgrims’ experience..

Cliff Barrows passed away on Tuesday, November 15, 2016, at the age of 93.

Born in Ceres, California, Barrows attended Bob Jones University, graduating in 1944 with an AB in sacred music and Shakespearean drama.

Later that year he was ordained as a Baptist minister in California and became assistant pastor of Temple Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In 1945, Cliff and his wife, Billie (newly married), attended a Youth for Christ rally in Asheville, North Carolina, where a 26-year-old nam..

In today’s post, I am interviewing Thomas Albert (Tal) Howard about how Christians should think about the Reformation, on the eve of its 500th anniversary year. Howard has recently written Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism (Oxford, 2016), and, co-edited with Mark Noll, Protestantism after 500 Years (Oxford, 2016). Howard is professor of humanities and history and holder of the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso Universi..

The Telegraph recently profiled the word of digital artist Marina Amaral.

Amaral is a 22-year-old Brazilian artist whose digital colourisations of iconic black-and-white images have become an internet sensation. Her work breathes new life into old pictures, stripping away the years and giving them an astonishing immediacy. . . .

Amaral, who lives in the city of Belo Horizonte, taught herself how to use Photoshop when she was 12 by watching tutorials on YouTube and experimenting.

For years it ..

It turns out that Donald Trump’s message resonated more widely than virtually all pundits and polls suggested, and he scored a stunning victory, with large majorities of self-identifying evangelicals supporting him. While I have often registered doubts about what the term ‘evangelical’ means in polls, the strength of the old Religious Right has clearly not been exhausted.

Part of the reason for this enduring strength is that conservative Christians were scared and scarred by threats to religiou..

Michael Brendan Dougherty, senior correspondent at TheWeek.com, a Roman Catholic, and one of the sharpest political commentators that I read, writes:

In 2016, self-described conservatives, the supposed defenders of the eternal verities, our national traditions, and family values, are rallying to the side of a cretinous, amoral lecher and thief.

And liberals, the friends of the little guy and advocates of friendship among all races of men, are siding with a desiccated grifter and war hawk.

Pun..

In C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, the demon Screwtape advises his protege and nephew Wormwood to convince his human target that politics are a key part of his faith. “Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part,” Screwtape said. That way, faith would become a mere pretext for politics.

Lewis did not need to see the excesses of the Moral Majority, or the recent white evangelical dalliance with Donald Trump, to understand the risk of politi..

In C.S. Lewis’s Screwtape Letters, the demon Screwtape advises his protege and nephew Wormwood to convince his human target that politics are a key part of his faith. “Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part,” Screwtape said. That way, faith would become a mere pretext for politics.

Lewis did not need to see the excesses of the Moral Majority, or the recent white evangelical dalliance with Donald Trump, to understand the risk of politic..

Chuck Templeton, Torrey Johnson, and Billy Graham in a publicity photo for the European trip taken in the YFC offices in Chicago. Ca. March 1946. (Billy Graham Center Archives, Wheaton College)

In 1936, at the age of 21, Charles Templeton professed faith in Christ for the first time. That same year he became an evangelist, dedicating his life to sharing the good news to anyone who would listen.

In 1945, he met a lanky 26-year-old evangelist named Billy Graham, and the two quickly became friend..

I recently got a mass e-mail from Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse, discussing what he calls “the most critical election of our lifetime.” In his appeal, Graham does not mention Donald Trump, but the clear inference is that faithful evangelicals must vote for Trump, and for Republican candidates down the ballot.

Graham’s manner of talking about the 2016 election perfectly illustrates the problems of the old-style Religious Right, and why so many faithful evangelicals will not be ..