Author name: Brian Allain

Male headship

From “Scapegoats: The Gospel Through the Eyes of Victims” by Jennifer Garcia Bashaw – Fortress Press Sally Gallagher, a sociology of religion researcher, has studied the complementarian ideas in evangelicalism for years. She argues that the majority of evangelicals cling tightly to the delineation of men and women’s roles not for biblical or theological convictions …

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Post-Truth?

From “How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion” by David McRaney As the decade came to a close, a New York Times op-ed titled “The Age of Post-Truth Politics” argued that democracy itself was now in danger because facts had “lost their ability to support consensus.” The New Yorker examined “Why …

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When We Believe What People Say About Us

 by Susan K. Smith             In his book, James Baldwin: A Biography. author David Leeming writes, “Children believe what their parents tell them, and oppressed minorities constantly face the danger of believing the myths attached to them by their oppressors.”              Those words lead to his observations about James Baldwin and his revelations about his stepfather, who, Baldwin said, …

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The legacy of tribalism

From “The Seven Democratic Virtues: What You Can Do to Overcome Tribalism and Save Our Democracy” by Christopher Beem All these innate features of human behavior combine to create a very formidable predisposition. All of us seek out those with whom we are comfortable, those who are like us and with whom we share some …

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The Doctrine of Discovery

From “The Land is Not Empty: Following Jesus in Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery” by Sarah Augustine The Doctrine of Discovery may sound like something from the past, a discrete historical event from back when Christians didn’t “know better.” Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. The Doctrine of Discovery formed the deep structure …

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Lip Service

From “US: The Resurrection of American Terror” by Rev. Kenneth W. Wheeler After every Racial Awareness Sunday, I would go back to my community on the far northwest side of Milwaukee. And the white members would return to their lives, where they would rarely come in contact with a person of color. In their everyday …

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Anticipatory Obedience

From “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by Timothy Snyder Anticipatory obedience is a political tragedy. Perhaps rulers did not initially know that citizens were willing to compromise this value or that principle. Perhaps a new regime did not at first have the direct means of influencing citizens one way or another. After …

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The Economics of Trust

A cynic might ask, “So what? Is trust really more than a nice-to-have social virtue, a so-called hygiene factor? Can you measurably illustrate that trust is a hard-edged economic driver?” I intent to answer these questions emphatically in this book by clearly demonstrating the strong business case for trust. Here’s a simple formula that will …

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