Things sometimes change very quickly in politics! On Saturday, July 20, Joe Biden was still running for President. By early afternoon on Sunday, July 21, he was dropping out of his reelection campaign and endorsing VP Kamala Harris as his successor. Contrary to what some Republicans seem to be calling for, Biden has every intention […]
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All the President’s People: The Vital Importance of the Leader’s Advisors
Yes, the person we elect as our President every four years is extremely important. Most of us hope against hope that he or she will have certain qualities for the job: competence, honesty, wide knowledge of the significant issues of the day, integrity, good mental and physical health, and others. In the complexity that is […]
Making Big Oil Pay: Vermont Takes the Lead
Tiny Vermont (population 647,000) has taken a big step: to use legislation to make giant oil companies accountable for a significant amount of damage that has been done to the earth’s environment by climate change. According to VTDigger, Republican Governor Phil Scott let the legislation, S.259, the “Climate Superfund Act,” go into effect without his […]
Ancient Papyri, Household Codes, Slavery, and non-Western Paul: A Sampling of Current Christian Testament Research
Last year, we reported on the First (2023) Global Virtual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature. And we have also discussed Biblical scholarship that has emerged from other SBL meetings (2017, 2020, and 2021). SBL, founded in 1880, is “the oldest and largest learned society devoted to the critical investigation of the Bible from […]
Democrats in the Pipeline: Planning for the Future II
In Part I of our look at up-and-coming Democrats to watch in the coming years, we portrayed VP Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senators Cory Booker and Mark Kelly, Representative Ro Khanna, and Biden-Harris campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu. Here we will highlight five others – four governors and a Cabinet member – in alphabetical […]
Democrats in the Pipeline: Planning for the Future I
If Joe Biden wins the Presidency again this November (as millions of Americans hope!), and if the Biden-Harris Administration continues making as much progress as it has in the past four years, their successes will provide a golden opportunity for other Democrats to run for President in 2028 and beyond. Let us take a look […]
Uncovering Nympha: Scholarship and Female Leadership in the Early Jesus Movement
When one reads standard reference works about the New (Christian) Testament and the early Jesus movement one would almost never know that there is a woman mentioned in the letter to the Colossians. It has taken recent research by female scholars to uncover yet another woman who served the movement in the same ways that […]
Influential (and Dangerous) Right-wing Organizations: A Focus on the Liberty Justice Center and the Alliance Defending Freedom
As the 2024 election season heats up, Americans who care about preserving our democratic republic should know about some of the organizations that are using their legal prowess to spread dangerous disinformation and influence not only the election but our laws – for years to come. Like Moms for Liberty, which we’ve examined before, the […]
Senate Races to Watch – and Candidates to Support – in 2024
Since shortly after the 2020 election, Democrats have held a slim majority in the Senate. This has allowed the Biden-Harris Administration to confirm 175 federal justices all over the country and pass significant legislation that would not have passed under a GOP-controlled body. Furthermore, gaining control of the Senate conferred majority leadership on New York […]
Resources for Women’s History Month
In honor of Women’s History Month, here is a sampling of resources about women, especially focused on the early Jesus followers, the New (Christian) Testament, nascent Christianity, and the ancient (Western) world. We are grateful for the scholars (both male and female) who have brought women out of the shadows over the past several decades! […]