Author: Douglas Brooks

The Accusation of “Intolerance”A Few Words for Your Cultured Despisers How “tolerant” are we called to be in debate and conversation with those who would side with moral turpitude and relativism? I think we who resist Trump will be accused of such “intolerance” as we contend with the casuistry and deception that fuels their...

The Bothersome Assignment of Being AmericanA School Teacher’s Lesson Plan It’s nearly the school year and I’m a school teacher. This role confers a few prerogatives, like restating the obvious, discomforting certainties, and demanding a certain respect for the shared enterprise. It’s always hard not to be pedantic because America, for all of its...

Monuments to Failure and Hope’s Unfinished FutureWhat Do We Do Now?“We cannot pretend that the ugly bigotry unleashed in the streets of Charlottesville, Va., this weekend has nothing to do with the election of Donald Trump….Now is the time for every decent white American to prove he or she loves this country by actively...

The Trump Lemonade StandNo Picture Yet So Here’s a Thousand Words Canandaigua is one of the beautiful lake towns of New York’s Finger Lakes, one quite close to our own outpost in the nearby hills. Lake properties are expensive, some posh enough to demand real money. The summer season is short, of course, and...

Republicans will now “move on” to “tax reform.” This means an enormous, unaffordable, unnecessary tax cut for the wealthiest few and corporate welfare beyond any imagining. We, the resisting will resist, point out the facts and try ever so earnestly to convince the populace that this is not in their interests. Evidence, arguments, facts...

Have any of you slogged through the monumental biography of Lincoln by Michael Burlingame? I’m twice through now though I confess that you could only love this kind of forensic historical detail if you love something as tedious, fatiguingly insular, and bromidic as, say, Indo-European linguistics or Indian philosophy. There’s a lot to learn...

Why, why would I do this? I hear you all the way from wherever you are. And I am very likely very far away from your there, deep as I am in the depths of the Trump Ocean. Only somewhere in Arkansas or Oklahoma is there a Congressional district as regressive and abaft the...

We’d have to poke into conversations and polls to make the point of today’s sermon stick. But the issue I raise here might be more than correlation— it might be causality. That is IF you are inclined to a faith-based worldview— especially one that adds in race and nationalism— THEN you are more likely...

I study religion for two reasons. First, the history of culture —art, music, mythology, poetry, ritual— is told largely through religion. If you want those wonderful things, you need to retrieve them from the clutches of religion. Second, I study religion because I am fascinated by our human willingness to submit to nonsense —to...

He should worry that there are tapes.He might fire Mueller. (N.B., he might)I’ll let you know.Just like Sessions said, it’s the “general strategic concept of the possibility.” It’s interesting how many people seem to find Trump’s words and actions baffling or incomprehensible. Too many pundits take these questions seriously. Is it because they need...