by Randall Balmer | Nov 20, 2025 | Opinion
A megachurch in Texas is offering a course to encourage evangelicals to run for public office. I have a couple of suggestions. According to the Texas Tribune, Mercy Culture, a megachurch based in Fort Worth, is trying to foster so-called “spirit-led candidates” by...
by Randall Balmer | Oct 27, 2025 | Opinion
The fiftieth anniversary of Willow Creek Community Church provides an occasion to consider the impact of megachurches on the landscape of American evangelicalism. In October 1975, Bill Hybels, a former youth pastor and graduate of now-defunct Trinity College in...
by Randall Balmer | Sep 17, 2025 | Opinion
During a recent podcast interview, I was asked to comment on David Barton and Charlie Kirk. They have been two of the most prominent fabulists promoting Christian nationalism, the fiction that the United States was founded as and should remain a Christian nation. I...
by Randall Balmer | Aug 26, 2025 | Opinion
The vital task of patrolling the wall of separation between church and state, America’s best idea, has enlisted some unlikely allies over the years. Although the motives animating some of those measures can undoubtedly be called into question, those contributions have...
by Randall Balmer | Jul 7, 2025 | Opinion
Jimmy Swaggart didn’t want to talk with me. He really didn’t want to talk with me. I flew to Baton Rouge in 1998, ten years after his famous—infamous!—confession that he had sinned against various people, including the Almighty. I had never been a fan of the...
