Don’t U.S. Muslims Deserve to Have a Senator?

Previously, I have written two blog posts about Islamophobia (in January 2016 and May 2013). But this month that phobia has reared its ugly head again, so I decided to change my planned blog post for today in order to write about Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and the recent Islamophobic attacks upon him. 

On August 4, Abdul El-Sayed won the primary election for the U.S. Senate in Michigan. Even though he was opposed by the Democratic “establishment,” which spent big bucks to oppose him in favor of their preferred candidate, El-Sayed (b. 1984) narrowly won the election. I had been pulling for him, mainly because of his progressive views.

In addition, I think it is only fair that U.S. citizens whose religion is Islam have a person of their faith in the Senate—and there never has been a Muslim Senator to this point. There are at least 1.1% of U.S. citizens whose religion is Islam, so 1% of the Senate being Muslim seems fair to me. (At present, there are four House members who are Muslim, slightly over 0.9%.)

El-Sayed holds an MD degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He was also a Rhodes Scholar and has a Doctorate (DPhil) in Public Health from Oxford University. Following graduation, he chose a career in public health, academia, and government. He self-identifies as a public health physician and epidemiologist.

El-Sayed’s political views deserve widespread support by progressives. I encourage you to read the excellent New York Times interview with the Michigan politician posted on August 7 (see here; the image at the head of this post is from the photo in that article, taken by Nick Hagen for the Times).

Among other things, Tim Balk, the interviewer, said to the Muslim candidate, “There are Jewish folks in Michigan who say they’re anxious about some of your comments. They’re anxious that they could make them less safe in Michigan. What’s your message to them?”

I was impressed by Abdul’s response: “My commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters. Antisemitism is a scourge.”

This also is noteworthy: a Religion News Service piece on his Senate primary win reports that El-Sayed has said he believes in the fundamental separation of church and state, adding that he wants to protect the kind of America where everybody can pray how they choose to pray, or choose not to pray at all.

Some Republican politicians have unfairly pilloried El-Sayed. Despite what Abdul has said and the full support he has from even the Democrats who opposed his election, Republican leaders such as the POTUS and Ted Cruz have spoken out strongly and untruthfully about him.

In his Truth Social post on Wednesday (Aug. 5), Trump leveled a series of attacks on El-Sayed. According to Time magazine, the POTUS called the Michigan politician ‘a man of hate’ who was ‘full of sh‑t.’ Ted Cruz’s invective was even harsher.

On that same Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Cruz (R-Texas) used the authority of his Judiciary subcommittee of the United States Senate to hold a hearing purporting to demonstrate that there has been a decades-long Muslim conspiracy, led by the Muslim Brotherhood, to undermine and control the United States. He stated that El-Sayed is “the crowning achievement of that conspiracy.”

In addition to the unseemly Islamophobic attacks, Abdul is also being attacked for being a Communist, as seen in Trump and his MAGA supporters, and renounced for being a Marxist.

Gary Bauer, a conservative evangelical commentator who writes the American Values daily email newsletter, also posted this on Aug. 5: “All of the socialist leaders were celebrating today. Bernie Sanders, AOC, Mamdani and Marxist professors on every U.S. university faculty see the future looking more like Marx and less like Jefferson.”

That is the sort of criticism coming from the Religious Right, who are mostly MAGA supporters and agree with Trump’s recent screed against Communism. And that is even though El-Sayed declares that he is a capitalist and won’t even self-identify as a democratic socialist.

I fully support the senatorial candidacy of El-Sayed, a Muslim, as well as that of Adam Hamilton, a widely known and highly respected Methodist pastor in Kansas, and of James Talarico, a recent seminary graduate in Texas.

What a difference it will make when Abdul, Adam, and James take their Senate seats in January of next year! (It’s OK to have high hopes, isn’t it?)

What Does Taking Up One’s Cross Mean?

Some of this blog’s readers were surprised that I quoted Jesus’ words in my July 20 post. What I was advocating with those words, though, is certainly relevant for people who are adherents of other religions—or of no religion—also. When carefully considered, many of the latter may well be implementing Jesus’ words more than most conservative evangelical Christians are. 

In this post I am thinking primarily of Jesus’ words in Luke 9:23.** Here is the NRSV translation of that verse: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”  

Traditionally, that important verse has been interpreted along the following lines, and here again I am using assistance from Claude, my A.I. “buddy.” (He/it told me in less than five seconds what I would have written in 15 minutes or more before chatbots became available.)

For many/most conservative evangelicals, taking up one’s cross means “personal sacrifice or suffering endured for one’s faith—enduring persecution, ridicule, or hardship for holding to Christian belief and behavior (often framed around culture-war flashpoints: refusing certain entertainment, standing firm on sexual ethics, facing mockery for evangelizing).”

This is the “quietist or status-quo-affirming” position. Since the cross is about internal spiritual struggle, it is not seen as having anything directly to do with the political world. If it does become a bit politicized, it is usually understood as bearing social stigma for “traditional values” positions.

However, the real meaning of Jesus’ words in about taking up one’s cross is quite different.

New Testament Christians were opposed by both religious and political powers. The Jewish leaders saw Jesus and his followers as a threat to their religious authority, and Caesar saw Jesus, who claimed to be Lord, and the Christians who called him Lord as a threat to his political power. Both powers first wanted to get rid of Jesus and then sought to eradicate his followers.

Crucifixion was one of the main forms of capital punishment used by Rome in New Testament times. It was specifically used for insurrectionists and rebels against Roman rule. That means of execution was designed to be maximally public and degrading. It was usually carried out along roadsides near cities, precisely as a deterrent against sedition.

“Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’” (John 19:19).

That’s part of why the charge on Jesus’s cross ("King of the Jews") matters—it marks him as executed for the crime of insurrection/treason against Rome, not blasphemy.

So, what does taking up one’s cross mean in the present day for us USAmericans? Among other things, it means opposing the Trump “regime” and his efforts to demonize his political opponents by calling them Communists (see this YouTube video of his July 4 speech).

_____*

** Were these really the words of Jesus? My local Thinking Friend Phil says that he thinks the same words in the Sermon on the Mount were Matthew’s words and not necessarily something that Jesus said. I disagreed, saying to Phil that even though the writer of the Gospel of Matthew may not have literally heard and written down those words when he heard Jesus say them, I think they would have been accurately handed down by “oral tradition,” which was very reliable in New Testament times, long before there were printed documents to hand down.

 

Aspiring to Be a Voice of Reason and Guidance

Early on the morning of July 12, I had a very vivid dream about the world being in chaos. I then woke up thinking, “The world’s in chaos and needs voices of reason and guidance.” At that point, I decided that I need to spend less time doing rather meaningless activities and more time seeking to be an outspoken voice of reason and guidance. Please join me in that endeavor.

Is the world in chaos? Well, it is not as chaotic as I saw in my dream that morning. But, yes, in many ways I think there are ample reasons to assert that the world today is, indeed, in chaos.

The physical world is in chaos because of environmental problems that are bad now and only going to get worse. For example, the glaciers are melting, the seas are rising, droughts are increasing, and reservoir levels are falling. We are experiencing the effects of “overshoot,” about which some knowledgeable people have warned us about for a long time.**

The geopolitical world is also in chaos in many places because of wars (such as in Iran, Ukraine, Sudan) and widespread immigration (because of necessity or desire). Co-Pilot told me that the world is experiencing the highest levels of forced displacement ever recorded, driven by war, persecution, state collapse, climate disasters, and economic desperation

In the world of ordinary people, chaos is seen in what can be called social decadence. A large part of such moral decadence is due to the President, about whom Michael Steele recently called a “disgusting man … with no moral code. “(This was in March, said in reaction to Trump’s gloating over Robert Mueller’s death.)

The current social decadence in the U.S. under the present POTUS is evident to anyone willing to look objectively. That decadence was quite apparent in the primetime speech Trump delivered on July 16.

Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist (2008) and currently a Distinguished Professor of Law. He has also been an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times. Early on July 17, he posted on his Substack account “more or less every word he spoke was a lie, including ‘a,’ ‘and,’ and ‘the’.”

And this is what Jen Rubin asserted on her July 13 Substack post: “To pretend there is any moral equivalence between the parties when it comes to handling moral depravity is to become an apologist for the party that has eschewed every standard of decency in favor of ruthless pursuit of power and cultist loyalty to a depraved narcissist.”

Fairly recently, I have become a regular reader of David Rothkopf’s Substack posts. (He is a foreign‑policy analyst and author. Among his many books is Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump, issued shortly before the 2020 presidential election.)

On the same day Rubin’s article was posted, Rothkopf (b. 1955) wrote how the USAmerican society

became so degraded, our values so diluted by our desire to be comfortable, that we allowed the most profoundly evil political leader in our history to become president and to echo the Nazis and authoritarians from centuries past as he compiled an administration, built a government, of people who were equally morally bereft, amoral, and immoral.

That is not to say that any democratically elected leader will be a saint or perfect. That is impossible. But we can value moral rectitude more than we do.

What can we do to be a voice of reason and guidance in this chaotic world? This is perhaps the question that most of us have, especially those of us who were adults (at least 18) when the U.S. celebrated its 200^th anniversary.

One of Jesus’ most challenging and most neglected admonition is “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23, NRSV). 

As you know, Jesus also said, “Come to me, all you who are struggling hard and carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest. Put on my yoke, and learn from me. I’m gentle and humble. And you will find rest for yourselves.” (Matt. 11:28-29).

Most Christians, including most preachers/pastors, have emphasized the Matthew passage far more than the challenging words from Luke 9. But rest has meaning only after strenuous efforts for doing good and being a voice for reason and guidance.

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** Many of you will remember that I have written about this in the past, inspired to do so by Michael Dowd (1958~2023), the eco-theologian and “evolutionary evangelist.” Here is a link to a blog article in which I wrote about Dowd and his challenging ideas:

https://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2022/01/facing-grief-of-looking-up-looking.html

 

Advocating Democratic Socialism

Back in September 2019, I posted a blog article titled “Was Jesus a Socialist?” Soon after making that post, I became increasingly aware of democratic socialism. Even though I am not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA, the largest socialist organization in the U.S., founded in 1982), I now self-identify as a democratic socialist. 

Democratic socialism is often misunderstood and unfairly maligned. For example, on July 1, Gary Bauer’s daily “American Values” email began,

We will celebrate America’s 250th birthday this weekend. Whether America celebrates its 300th birthday 50 years from now is increasingly in doubt because our constitutional Republic is in danger! The danger to our freedom is not Donald Trump, who wants to make America great again. The danger is the radical Left that hates America and wants to “fundamentally transform” it.**

Bauer goes on to write, “Yesterday’s election results in Colorado prove that the communist / Marxist victories in New York City were not just a fluke isolated to New York City.” Then he laments, “An anti-American, pro-Hamas communist defeated a far-left, 30-year incumbent in the Democrat primary for the Denver-area House seat.”

Bauer is an educated man, and he no doubt knows the distinct difference between democratic socialism and communism. But he can conflate the two in order to increase donations from the MAGA supporters who don’t know the difference. (People seeking donations don’t necessarily tell the whole truth in order to profit from the ignorance of the general public.)

It is a push to say that Rep. DeGette is “far-left,” but it is almost libelous to say that Melat Kiros is anti-American, pro-Hamas, and/or a communist. In that June 30 Colorado primary election, 29-year-old candidate Kiros defeated the incumbent, who was seeking her 15^th term, first elected when Kiros was still an infant in her native Ethiopia.

Kiros is aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, but that is far from communism. DSA’s platform centers on things like Medicare for all, workers’ rights, and curbing corporate/billionaire power through democratic and electoral means.

Kiros’s own reported platform—ending U.S. aid to Israel, Medicare for all, abolishing ICE—is directly linked to DSA’s standard policy agenda but certainly not to communist aspirations. DSA’s and Kiros’s platform are far different from the classic communist program of abolishing private property via revolution and one-party state control.

On July 3, President Trump delivered an anti-communist speech at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in Keystone, South Dakota. Unlike Bauer, it is quite likely that the POTUS doesn’t clearly understand the difference between communism and democratic socialism.

Three days later, Robert Reich posted “Why Is He Using the Communist Trump Card?” on his Substack account. Reich writes, “Trump has run out of cards to play in the midterm elections, which is why he’s now talking about the “communist menace.”

Reich continues accusing the POTUS of “resorting to the oldest of right-wing tropes—accusing Democrats (especially a rising generation of new, young, vigorous Democratic politicians) of being commies.”

In that July 3 speech, Trump asserted, “There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. You can be a communist, or you can be a patriot. You cannot be both.”

Unlike Bauer, perhaps Trump doesn’t know the difference between democratic socialism and communism. Unfortunately, many of his MAGA supporters continue to take what he says as true and trustworthy, so many of them have strong negative feelings toward democratic socialism.

A Facebook friend sent me a screenshot from Fox News showing what the Democratic Socialists of America advocate, and those were given as reasons for their opposition to the DSA. The image showed Medicare for all, college for all, housing for all, 32 hour workweek, tax the rich, Green New Deal, and free Palestine.

Except for the latter, which is widely (and wrongly) interpreted as being “anti-Semitic,” the other five are quite popular with most U.S. citizens except for the die-hard MAGA supporters.

I continue to advocate for democratic socialism, which aims to expand public ownership and workplace democracy while preserving political democracy. It’s about shifting more economic power to workers and the public. That also shifts the power from the control of billionaires to the workers in the 98% who are not wealthy.

That sounds good to me. What do you think?

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** Gary Bauer (b. 1946 in Kentucky) grew up as a Southern Baptist and graduated from Georgetown College (in Kentucky), a traditional SB school (similar to William Jewell College, my alma mater). He started an organization with the name “American Values” in 2007 and has been the president of it until the present. He sends out American Values emails almost daily. He has long been one of the prime leaders of conservative evangelicalism in the U.S.

“God Hates Bad Parties”: Sojourners Strikes Again

 As many of you know, I have been reading Sojourners magazine since its very first issue. The current issue is No. 05 of Vol. 55, so that means I have been reading it for 55 years now. That first tabloid-type magazine came out in the fall of 1971 as The Post-American (the original name), when I was in the U.S. on our first missionary “furlough” from Japan. 

“America Isn’t Exceptional” is the theme of the June 2026 issue of Sojourners, and Betsy Shirley, the current Editor in Chief, begins her introduction to this new issue with this powerful paragraph.**

My four-word summary of the book of Amos: God hates bad parties. Aiming serious prophetic fire at powerful people who host showy religious festivals instead of attending to the needs of the poor, telling truth, or acting with integrity, God doesn’t mince words: “I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies” (5:21).

In that introduction, Shirley noted how the very first issue in 1971 showed Jesus wrapped in an American flag (which is shown in the sidebar) and how founding editor Jim Wallis “didn’t mince words” when he wrote,

Institutional Christianity in America has allowed itself to become a conservative defender of the status quo, a church largely co-opted and conformed to the American system in direct disobedience to Biblical teaching (Romans 12:2).

Little did Jim know then how bad things would get after 2015 with a faux Christian becoming President and a mass of MAGA Christians, members of a “cultic system” (such as I wrote about in my June 9 blog post), wanting to establish a theocracy in the U.S., or at least full-scale Christian nationalism.

“‘Liberty and Justice for All’ is Still an Ideal Worth Celebrating.” These are words emphasized by Adam Russell Taylor, who is the current president of Sojourners. He begins his lead article by posing this question: “How do we commemorate the 250^th birthday of the United States while resisting the extremes of either hubris and triumphalism or apathy and self-loathing.”

We certainly see the 250^th anniversary of the nation’s founding cloaked in hubris and triumphalism by the current POTUS, who will likely boast that the U.S. is the greatest nation in the history of the world led by the greatest president in history. His narcissism seems unbounded, but more and more of his own supporters are now finally realizing that the “the emperor has no clothes.”

Still, according to ChatGPT, Trump has promised to give a “Trump Rally” speech on July 4, which will likely emphasize American exceptionalism and patriotism; the 250^th anniversary as a historic milestone; his administration’s accomplishments; themes of national strength, military power, and economic success; and criticism of political opponents.

And ChatGPT adds, “Whether he directly claims to be the greatest president is uncertain, but a speech that presents his presidency as uniquely successful would be consistent with his past style.”

On June 18, Robert Reich (about whom I wrote in my previous blog article), posted Knave or Fool? Traitorous or Demented? on his Substack account. He declared,

Trump is a master conman. But he’s also off his rocker—and part of the response to him and his bonkers claims must also be to emphasize that he’s out of his mind as well as responsible for the havoc America now finds itself in—the failed foreign adventures and the affordability crisis—and therefore must not be trusted.

Still, as Taylor concludes, “One of the best 250^th birthday presents we can give is to counter bombastic, nationalistic celebrations by practicing civic renewal. We can help our nation pursue ‘liberty and justice for all,’ an ideal still worth celebrating.”

The last page of each Sojourners issue is an article of (sarcastic) humor. Ed Spivey Jr. writes there that “if the Founding Fathers came back today, they’d be pleased to see that wealthy white guys still run our nation. (That’s the way it should be,’ Ben Franklin might say.) Spivey concludes,

It’s doubtful England would take us back after all this time (we’d have to replace that tea). If they did, our government could run under the watchful eye of a wise and benevolent king. It looks like we have the king already (just ask him), but we might have to wait a generation for the wise and benevolent part.

       So, how does “All hail Donald Jr.” sound?

_____

** Editor Shirley graduated from Yale Divinity School in 2015 and has been a full-time staff member at Sojourners ever since. She became the editor of Sojo.net in 2022 and has been the editor-in-chief of the magazine since September 2024.

Reading Robert Reich, a “Wee Little Man”

“Zacchaeus Was a Wee Little Man” is a children’s song that those of us who grew up going to Sunday School sang and taught our children to sing. This blog post is about Robert Reich, who is a contemporary “wee little man” and also one of the most articulate political pundits in the U.S. today. (Note that he pronounces his name Rike, rhyming with bike and like.) 

Reich with Clinton in the 1990s

Robert Bernard Reich is a political economist, professor, author, and commentator who served as U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton (1993~97) and also served in the Ford and Carter administrations. He was named by Time magazine as one of the ten most effective cabinet members of the 20^th century. Next week (on June 24), he will celebrate his 80^th birthday. 

Reich was born with multiple epiphyseal dysplasia, also known as Fairbank’s disease. That is a rare genetic disorder that affects bone growth and results in short stature. Reich stands 4 feet 11 inches tall, so he is 9 or 10 inches shorter than the average White U.S. male of the same age.

As Reich himself explained to NPR in 2023, his shortness is a kind of deformity in which the cartilage at the end of one’s bones that normally adds additional bone during growth simply doesn’t do its job. But that deformity didn’t keep him from doing his job as a professor at Harvard (1981~92), Brandeis (1997~2005), and the University of California, Berkeley, from 2006 to 2023.

Last year Reich published Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, referring both to his stature and to a country that he thinks has fallen short of its ideals.

Every day, I read four political pundits, the posts by Heather Cox Richardson, Reich, Joyce Vance, and Paul Krugman. Richardson usually posts after midnight, so I read her early every morning. Reich usually posts at least once every day, and I generally read one of his articles daily before noon also.  

I don’t know why it is, but so many public intellectuals, such as the ones just mentioned except for Richardson, are Jewish by heritage and identity but not by religious observance. This is clearly the case with Reich. His essays often echo the Hebrew Bible’s twin imperatives of justice and righteousness, such as those found in Isaiah 1:17 and Amos 5:24.

I find the posts by the scholars/commentators just mentioned are more beneficial than the curated articles in The New York Times and/or The Washington Post, of which I have cancelled my subscription as I no longer want to read a newspaper with a billionaire determining its editorial content.

In addition to reading Richardson’s daily newsletters, I also encourage you to read Reich’s Substack posts, which are also available at no charge. As one who is no longer receiving a paycheck from some institution, Reich can (and does) say what he thinks is most important, letting the chips fall where they may. Even though he is a “wee little man,” he certainly stands tall.

Reich’s June 16 Substack post is especially noteworthy. It is titled “Friendly advice I refuse to take.” (I encourage you to click on the link and read the entire article.) Next Wednesday will be Reich’s 80^th birthday, and the “friendly advice” was from an old friend of about the same age. Reich said he “lost it” when his friend told him, “You’ve got to slow down.”

The “wee little man” retorted, “We’re in a national emergency!” So, “That’s exactly why I’m not slowing down!” He goes on to say, “I’m doing what I do because—and as long as—I’m still able to.”

I am about eight years older than Reich, and to be honest, I am thinking about “retiring” in two years when I turn 90. But that is not definite at this point. Maybe I will keep on doing what I am doing, which is mainly writing three blog articles each month, as long as I’m still able to do so.

Gordon Cosby (1918~2013), the co-founder of the Church of the Saviour in Washington, D.C., was widely regarded as one of the most influential pastors of the 20^th century. He is quoted as saying that “a minister never retires; we are simply reassigned to new forms of service.”

For Cosby, vocation was never a job description but a lifelong posture of availability—an openness to whatever work love requires next. Even in his nineties, long after most clergy had stepped away from public ministry, Cosby kept showing up in small, quiet ways: listening, blessing, encouraging, and standing with those on the margins.

So, like Cosby did and Reich is seeking to do, I want to keep on seeking to do good and trying to write well for as long as I am able.

[Note: Research and writing assistance was provided by Claude (Anthropic) A.I.]

Is Conservative Evangelical Christianity a Cult?

Although I prefer to write about broader topics, it seems like I keep getting drawn back to issues I was dealing with when I wrote the first edition of my book Fed Up with Fundamentalism (2007). I have shifted to using the term conservative evangelical rather than fundamentalist, but the terms are basically identical—and problematic. 

What is a Cult? According to Claude, scholars “have defined a cult as a religious group exhibiting some or all of the following characteristics: a charismatic leader who exercises total control; an apocalyptic vision; isolation from society; an emphasis on transcendent spiritual experience; and rigid rules governing members’ behavior.”

Central to this definition is the element of coercion: the assumption that some form of coercive persuasion or mind control is used to recruit and retain members by suppressing their ability to reason, think critically, and make choices in their own best interest. It is that understanding of cult that I am considering in this article.

“White evangelicals: An American cult” is a piece I recently came across.* Edmond Davis, the author, states that White evangelical support for Donald Trump “has evolved into something disturbingly cult-like, forming a theology not rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ but in the gospel of white grievance, dominionism and nostalgia for an imagined, morally superior past.”

I encourage you to read that perceptive essay (available here), which lists many “major drivers” behind the formation of the White evangelical cult. For those of you who are interested in this subject, I also recommend reading the July 2022 article “Escaping the Evangelical Cult” by Keith Giles (see here).

Despite my original intention to write much more about those two provocative pieces, for the rest of this article I am switching to sharing a meaningful discussion I had with Claude about the matter at hand.

Conservative evangelical Christianity is more a cultic system than a cult, as the latter is generally understood. That difference, which Clyde pointed out, is quite helpful. While Davis’s article, referenced above, uses the word cult, his primary meaning is that of a cultic system. There certainly isn’t just one “cult leader.”

Jim Jones and Peoples Temple (Jonestown, 1978) and David Koresh and the Branch Davidians (Waco, 1993) are two of the widely known cults of the past. And although not known broadly, the earlier Alamo Christian Foundation, begun by Tony Alamo in 1969, was a similar type of cult.

Alamo (1934~2017), who was born in Missouri, presented himself as a born-again evangelical street preacher, amassing followers through communal living, frugality, and total obedience—all while exploiting members financially. He died while serving a 175-year prison sentence for raping young girls, whom he called his “child brides.”

Certainly, conservative Christianity can’t be considered a cult in the same way those infamous cults were. So, let’s look at some of the ways evangelicalism can legitimately be called a “cultic system.”

Conservative evangelical Christianity promotes a “silo” mentality. According to Claude, even for conservatives who would never consider joining a dangerous cult such as those mentioned above, “conservative evangelical culture tends to function as an epistemic silo—a closed information environment that systematically limits the range of experiences, friendships, and ideas available to its members.” It that sense, it is a type of “cultic system.”

A lifetime inside that “silo” typically means that one’s friends are overwhelmingly people who share the same theological assumptions, political commitments, and cultural reference points. Friendships with those who are “different” are often subtly discouraged, and when such do occur, they are often framed as “mission” rather than mutual relationship.

For many conservatives, Christian radio, evangelical publishing, a curated set of approved authors and speakers are normative. The “gatekeeping” is real; for example, certain books simply don't appear on the church bookstall, and certain questions don’t get raised from the pulpit.

Christian schooling for most and homeschooling for some is specifically designed to present an alternative epistemic universe, one in which, for example, young-earth creationism, American exceptionalism, and traditional gender roles are not debatable positions but settled facts.

I know about that sort of silo mentality, because that was my basic position when I was in high school, and I first went to a Baptist college, not realizing then that I was part of a “cultic system.” It took many years before I began becoming a progressive Christian, which I now seek to be.**

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  * That article was posted by Global Baptist News on May 14. Edmond W. Davis, a retired college history professor, was the author. He taught at Arkansas Baptist College, a private, Baptist-affiliated institution recognized as a historically Black college/university (HBCU). The article identifies him as a HBCU leader.

** If you want to read, or re-read, my blog post about being a progressive Christian, here is the link to that May 11 article: https://theviewfromthisseat.blogspot.com/2026/05/why-i-am-progressive-christian.html

Note: Research assistance provided by Claude (Anthropic) A.I.