Mere musings on culture, life, and theology by Samuel James
Samuel James on January 8, 2018 I have only a brief thought on Matt Loftus's recent essay (and follow-up blog post) on whether we should use the term "pro-life" to refer to issues other than the traditional referents. It seems to me that you can't make the term "pro-life" do more by making it mean less. I think that's what Matt…
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Samuel James on December 14, 2017 There is a strain of thinking among some evangelicals that I cannot get my head around. Here it is: The Republican Party's collapse of virtue and embrace of sub-moral strongmen can be attributed, at least in part, to the well-intentioned but naive single-mindedness of the pro-life movement. James K.A. Smith's brief Tweet thread seems to repeat…
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Samuel James on September 15, 2017 Senator and Vice Presidential candidate Tim Kaine believes that both conservative and liberal Christians should be able to find common ground on healthcare. In an op-ed for Christianity Today, Senator Kaine writes that Christ’s commands to care for the “least of these” should galvanize Bible-believers on both sides of the political aisle to find compassionate…
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Samuel James on January 25, 2017 The first thing readers should know about Moira Weigel’s essay in The Atlantic is its original title. When the piece went live early Tuesday morning, that title was “How the Ultrasound Pushed the Idea That a Fetus Is a Person.” But by 1PM on the east coast, the article bore a new moniker: “How the…
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Samuel James on January 21, 2017 Photo of the day: Here's what I wrote last year about the slow, underhanded, but very real disappearance of the center in the pro-choice camp. What’s happening for the abortion lobby is that its political myths are falling apart. “Safe, legal, and rare” was a carefully crafted slogan, built to elicit both protective instincts…
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