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Nondenominational Christians are on the rise

National Columnists

A recent report focused on what is considered a rising trend of Christians now attending nondenominational churches. Quoting research from the General Social Survey, the report mentioned that in 1972, “fewer than 3% of Americans identified as nondenominational Christians.” Today, close to 40 million people identify as such. Stories like this always pique my interest due to my upbringing in a traditional Southern Black Baptist church in Athens, Georgia, during the 1970s and ‘80s. As a child, I often wondered what the difference was between being a Baptist or a Methodist, two of ...

Administration should reinforce ties to Hispanics

National Columnists

Is President Donald Trump losing the winning coalition he built just a year ago? He’s been the subject of premature political obituaries before — but Republicans are worried about signs that his gains with Hispanics are evaporating. Trump stunned pundits last year by very nearly winning the Hispanic vote outright. A constituency Democrats had come to take for granted suddenly seemed ready to realign with Republicans. But the numbers from the off-year elections earlier this month tell a different story. New Jersey townships with high proportions of Hispanic voters ...

Immigration enforcement not equivalent to Holocaust

National Columnists

Whence cometh the conviction, in America and even more in Britain and Europe, that open borders is the only moral immigration policy? Of course, not everyone believes that, and many who do stop short of saying so. But the contrast between the rhetoric and policies of the first two decades of the century and those that have prevailed since President Donald Trump’s election is unmistakable. Former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, like the George Bushes, professed to want to enforce immigration laws. They decried the flood of illegals that crested in the prosperous decade ...

Focus this week on caring for others

National Columnists

This week, millions of Americans will go to work thinking about when to thaw out their turkeys (start today), which sides to cook, what time to head off on travel and living arrangements for company. As they drive out, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jeffrey Epstein and even President Donald Trump will not be at the front of their minds unless they are pulled into social media and cable news. Millions of Americans will head out for the holidays and pass houses in which nameless and faceless residents live. They will pass by nameless homeless people, some holding cardboard signs asking for ...

What does it mean to be an American?

National Columnists

The chaotic confrontation in Dearborn, Michigan, last Tuesday — when a demonstrator attempted to burn a Qur’an and Muslim counter-protesters surged — was more than a brief flash of drama. Along with other recent controversies in Arab-majority Dearborn, such as when the Muslim mayor told a Christian minister he “was not welcome here” and was an “Islamophobe” for objecting to renaming a local street after a Hezbollah-supporting journalist, this latest cultural skirmish yet again underscores longstanding concerns about America’s immigration regime — and, above all, the ...

Good leaders refrain from too much poking

Letters to the Editor

James Olson, Minot The best leaders are those the people hardly know exist; they become servants of their people. For only he who is the lowest servant of the kingdom is worthy of becoming its ruler. Good government is unobtrusive and this enables the people to become whole. It doesn’t interfere with the people unnecessarily.. “Governing a large country is like frying small fish. Too much poking spoils the meat.” – Lao Tzu (old master). Namaste.