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Adam Blosser's avatar

Interesting. The author begins the article by highlighting the importance of a journalist entering spaces with those he disagrees and working to understand their arguments. Then he proceeds to demonstrate throughout the rest of the article that in this case, he has neither entered the space of those he chastises nor sought to understand their arguments. As an evangelical pastor in the community, there are a lot of things that trouble me about contemporary evangelicalism in America. Some of those things would be things that the author and I could agree about. But the kind of broad sweeping generalizations about evangelicals found in this article are unhelpful and based on the author's own biases and ignorance. He should have spent more time with some evangelicals, working to understand their arguments, before hitting send on this one.

Regarding the prayer time that the school board member wants to have prior to the school board meetings, that's his right. Elected officials do not have to check their freedom of religion at the door before taking office. However, I'm not sure I understand why they don't have the prayer meeting at 5:45 and keep the school board meeting as it is rather than move the school board meeting back for the prayer time.

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Mark Houghton's avatar

Excellent piece. Congrats on the clincher--the Matthean citation and for being willing to put it out there, for that is indeed part of the motivation as it was for that football coach who insisted on praying on the 50-yd line under the bright lights for all the world to see.

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