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Whose Christianity? Whose America?

Reflections on Christian Nationalism, Political Identity, and the Church There is something peculiar about the contemporary debate over Christian nationalism. Christians argue about whether America is, or ought to be, a Christian nation. Politicians invoke Christianity as a source of national identity. Religious leaders warn against the identification of the gospel with political power. And much of the argument unfolds not in churches, seminaries, or theological journals, but in electoral campaigns, legislative chambers, television studios, and social media. What, exactly, are we arguing about? One possibility is that Christian nationalism represents a theological controversy conducted through electoral politics. Christians disagree about the nature of Christianity, the meaning of Christian discipleship, and the proper relationship between the church and political authority. Those disagreements find expression in competing visions of American public life. Another possibility revers...
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A World Already Awake?

Consciousness, Creation, and the Limits of Our Imagination A recent Big Think interview with psychiatrist and philosopher Iain McGilchrist, titled “The Consciousness Theory That Connects You to Everything,” raises a question that modern science has generally preferred to approach from the opposite direction. What if consciousness is not something the brain produces? What if the brain, rather than manufacturing consciousness, gives particular form to something already present in reality? McGilchrist offers an arresting analogy. The human voice depends upon the larynx, but the larynx does not create the air that passes through it. It shapes that air into a distinctive expression. Perhaps, he suggests, the brain does something similar with consciousness. He offers another image: a whirlpool in a river. The whirlpool has an identifiable shape, a particular history, even something resembling an individual existence. Yet it is not a separate substance introduced into the water. It is the...
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