Hunter Baker

The LA Times blog referred to my friend Ben Mitchell and his fellow panelists at the hearing on the HHS mandate as “hyperbolic.”  Mitchell, in particular, employed Roger Williams’ famous comparison of violations of religious liberty with “the rape of the soul.”It . . . . Continue Reading »

The primary point of my first book, The End of Secularism, was to demonstrate that secularism doesn’t do what it claims to do, which is to solve the problem of religious difference.  As I look at the  administration’s attempt to mandate that religious employers pay for . . . . Continue Reading »

I just read Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo.  A few of my family members recommended it very strongly.  The main attraction is that Mr. Burpo’s son nearly died of acute, misdiagnosed appendicitis and survived to report that he had been to Heaven.  Young Colton Burpo . . . . Continue Reading »

Lately with all the talk of “Dominionism” and the scary religious right and Frank Schaeffer chiming in, I feel the need to draw attention to a biography of Francis Schaeffer that I think really portrayed him fairly and without the usual political histrionics.  I wrote the following . . . . Continue Reading »

Elsewhere, I rejected the contention by Michelle Goldberg and others that evangelical leaders such as Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry are significantly influenced by the aims of the tiny Christian Reconstructionism movement.  I tried to make the point that CR has a negligible political . . . . Continue Reading »

I’ve just seen the entire run of LOST over the course of about two months. It is time for a few reflections. To those who intend to watch the show, stop reading now. There will be SPOILERS.The show begins with a jet crashing on an island in the Pacific. The first question is, “Who survives a jet . . . . Continue Reading »

Lars Walker is a wonderful writer of fiction related to Vikings (and Christianity).  He recently took up his pen, so to speak, to review the new Thor movie.  These lines caught my attention:To anyone schooled in Norse mythology, the Odin of the movie is almost unrecognizable, except . . . . Continue Reading »

UPDATE: You can read Guelzo’s piece here.Many are now taking note of Allen Guelzo’s essay in Touchstone on the situation of evangelical colleges in America. He points out a number of troubling issues, such as that few of these schools are selective, alumni are not giving, and many . . . . Continue Reading »

This piece was originally written for the Breakpoint blog. Crossposted with their permission.Christians have a deep ambivalence about Ayn Rand that probably draws as deeply from the facts of her biography as from her famous novels. When the refugee from the old Soviet Union met the Catholic . . . . Continue Reading »

I pay a lot of attention to the ways people speak because words have always fascinated me. I continue to remember the day, nearly 20 years ago, when my father watched undergrads walking from downtown Athens onto the UGA campus and remarked, “There go the students entering into the portals of . . . . Continue Reading »