James R. Rogers

It’s Even Worse than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism by Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein Basic Books, 226 pages, $26 Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein just don’t seem to understand—or they just choose to ignore—that . . . . Continue Reading »

Along with many mainline denominations, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has seen a gradual, but persistent, decline in membership in recent decades. One exception to this trend in the LCMS has been the Texas District, where membership has remained more or less steady over the last decade. I recently sat down with Rev. Ken Hennings, president of the Texas District of the LCMS to discuss what accounts for its different experience… . Continue Reading »

In the forthcoming issue of the journal Sociology of Religion, sociologist Philip Schwadel reports that between 1974 and 2010, the “probability of reporting a strong religious affiliation declined considerably among Catholics” in the U.S. and “increased among evangelical Protestants.” The thing is, this is not necessarily quite the bad news it might sound to be for Catholics, and not quite the good news it might sound to be for Evangelicals… . Continue Reading »

Natural lawyers commonly cite a passage from the second chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans to show the existence of natural law to Christians. While I accept some version of natural law, natural lawyers often seem to want to derive much more from the text than it supports. The commonly quoted passage from the book of Romans is this … Continue Reading »

President Obama was such a weak candidate that one unalloyed good moment by a weak Republican candidate – the debate of October 3 – almost threw the election to the latter. As a result, I don’t see that the election results presage much about American conservatism. I recall . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m a political scientist, but I don’t study elections. At least not real elections. So I disappoint folks”particularly reporters”who think that, as a political scientist, I should have a keen interest in, and insights into, presidential races. But just because I’m more interested in the votes that took place at the constitutional convention in 1787 than I am in the most recent poll doesn’t mean that I’m entirely oblivious to the presidential election. So let me serve up a few thoughts prompted by the election… . Continue Reading »

James Madison famously defines “faction” in The Federalist No. 10 as “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” … Continue Reading »

The stories from the Bible so often come to us as isolated examples of pious or ethical behavior, that it’s frankly a relief to read Yoram Hazony’s book, The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture. Hazony reads these stories intertextually across the books in order to argue for a number of provocative conclusions from the Hebrew Scriptures. It’s a great read, but I want to press his argument on two points… . Continue Reading »

I recall watching Richard John Neuhaus address the National Association of Evangelicals when still a Lutheran pastor. He intoned in his sonorous voice at the start of his talk, “We evangelicals …” all the time smiling like a Cheshire cat. … Continue Reading »

Matthew Cantirino below links John R. P. Russell’s post on “Cursing Psalms: An Allegorical Reinterpretation.” In struggling to understand the imprecations in the Psalms, I make something of a similar move to the one Russell describes. The one difference, though, is that I apply the . . . . Continue Reading »