I invite younger readers to take a look [at my book, Building a Protestant Left] and see if there is anything there for them. Few of the issues that C&C addressed have gone away. Nor have people in left Christian traditions disappeared. (Yes, they are a minority, but we often underestimate how much that has always been true). We can learn from their experience in the current moment.

What follows has more information, in a tighter package, than you’ll hear about Lutherans in many US religion overviews--so let's shoehorn it into my "1000 words or less" series although it slightly overshoots. Knowing more about Lutherans could matter in various ways, including that if you care about Midwestern swing voters or why Minneapolis mobilized against ICE, it might help you.

A curious thing about being rooted in Minnesota, as I am, and having taught on US religion, is that I notice—more than most—how often Lutherans get squeezed out of the big picture when pundits map the US religious landscape... [But in the upper Midwest] Lutherans, alongside Catholics, are a decisive swing demographic. It is not too much to say they could be ground zero for deciding the balance of power in the 2026 midterms and 2028 elections.

Thirty years ago seems like barely yesterday, but in a different country. You can’t be young and think that.

Quite a few of the pieces I've been half-finishing lately are about the mixed blessings of left-wing discourse on so-called Christian Nationalism, and/or the traumas of ICE invading my old home ground of Minneapolis and shooting protestors in cold blood, and/or something we learned in the last election: that Trump won because about half of the populace thought he was a lesser evil compared to left-liberals.....I hope to circle back through some of these issues over the next f

(Part of a thread to share poems or poetry-adjacent writing, as discussed here .) Note: First a semi-apology to those who follow my blog feed (as opposed to parachuting in now and then). I’m aware I haven’t posted much lately. That's largely because more diligent Substack people have been saying plenty of things I don’t need to echo. But it’s also due to my decision after the 2024 election to sit back, watch and try to understand how the MAGA Christian Right fits into the se