President Lazarus? Understanding US politics
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 22 May 2025
Having spent a lifetime teaching and writing about American politics, I’m often asked this question by bemused church friends: “Why did 82% of white evangelical men vote for Donald Trump in 2024?” And the first thing that I want them to understand is that both they and those American voters are using the word “evangelical” to mean two different things.
My friends use the word to refer to something spiritual centring on the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ concerning man’s sinfulness, Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross, the empowering of the Holy Spirit to live God-honouring lives, and the need to preach that gospel to those as yet unsaved.
letter from America
‘I can’t avoid writing about Donald Trump...’
David Burrowes
Date posted: 20 Mar 2025
I know it’s tempting, but I can’t avoid writing about Donald Trump. Having been at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C., the impact of Donald Trump and how Christians should respond looms large.
So to the US Capitol, where just a week after President Trump’s inauguration the talk of the town was of the first set of executive orders being fired off, calling a national emergency on the southern border to stop illegal migration and USAID freezing all aid programmes.
Trump 'Jesus' post sparks outrage
en staff
Date posted: 13 Apr 2026
US President Donald Trump is attracting a torrent of outrage after posting a picture in which he apparently likened himself to Christ.
The picture - shared on social media network Truth Social - appeared to show Trump, as Jesus, healing a man, while surrounded by military and national symbols.
How US evangelicals could affect the entire world
Martyn Whittock
Date posted: 1 Mar 2024
So, ‘Super Tuesday’ has happened – and Donald Trump looks on track for the Republican Party nomination in the US presidential elections.
A lot could happen between now and the actual vote, of course – but currently polls show Trump leading Biden, and so we could well be facing a second presidency from the businessman and former TV host. The role that US evangelicals play could affect the entire globe – and should be viewed, as I will explain below, with some concern.
Politics USA
Donald Trump: An imperial president?
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 2 Dec 2025
The term “the imperial presidency” gained popularity in the USA in the early 1970s as a consequence of a book of that title by the historian Arthur Schlesinger.
Schlesinger charted what he saw as the abuse of power by successive presidents, most especially by Johnson (1963–69) and Nixon (1969–74). The presidency, claimed Schlesinger, had come to resemble more an imperial court than the office envisaged by the Founding Fathers back in the 1780s.
Trump 2.0: A concerned evangelical view
Martyn Whittock
Date posted: 24 Jan 2025
The return of Donald Trump to the White House should be a matter of concern; not panic, but concern.
It should, at this point, be stated clearly that my contention is not based on an expectation that US electors (including evangelical Christians) should become Democrats. Nor that there is something inherently wrong with the historic Republican Party. My case is that the matter is rather simpler: there is something inherently wrong with Donald Trump and the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement (which has, in effect, become the Republican Party). I would also argue that there is something significantly wrong with the US section of the international evangelical movement; and this is shown in its deep commitment to Trump and to MAGA.
Reflecting theologically on war in the Middle East
Dave Burke
Date posted: 19 Mar 2026
It is rare that theology features in the decision making of great nations, but there are reports of US military commanders referencing the Biblical end-times narrative of writers such as Tim LaHaye and Hal Lindsay. One officer is quoted by an NCO as saying, “President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark His return to Earth.”
If you want to weigh up the rights and wrongs of the latest war in the Middle East you need to go further back than those writers or even the Victorian clergyman, John Nelson Derby, who inspired them with his dispensationalist theology. Great Christian thinkers like Augustine of Hippo and St Thomas Aquinas developed principles to restrain Christian princes from unnecessary military action. The intention to wage war was justified only if it passed certain tests. Here are three of them:
In defence of Trump
Date posted: 3 Dec 2024
Dear Editor,
I fully accept that all sides of an opinion have the right to be heard, but I myself am very dismayed by the way Timothy Reynolds (in his letter in the November issue of en) slighted Donald Trump.
Comment USA
Prayer in schools?
Tony Bennett
Date posted: 26 Aug 2026
When I attended state schools in Derby from the mid-1950s to the late-1960s, every school day began with an act of Christian worship which included a hymn, a Bible reading, and prayers always concluding with the Lord’s Prayer. All this was a requirement of the 1944 Education Act. I gather things are somewhat different today. Most British schools don’t feel comfortable any more “doing God”, let alone Jesus.
That’s the reverse of what’s happened in the USA. It’s all very different over there where such things are decided not by legislation but by the Constitution as interpreted by the US Supreme Court. Let’s start with the Constitution. The First Amendment to the Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” From the 1960s through to 2000, the Supreme Court interpreted that prohibition on a nationally-prescribed religion to declare unconstitutional a host of Christian practices in public (i.e. state-run) schools.
US commission critiques UK religious freedom
Emily Pollok
Date posted: 26 Aug 2026
The UK has “heavy-handed” policies affecting religious freedom, a US report claims.
The criticism comes from the Religious Liberty Commission, established by President Donald Trump last May, which has published a draft report, highlighting Britain and several other countries.
politics & policy
‘Why do the nations rage?’
Krish Kandiah
Date posted: 31 Jan 2026
On 3 January, as part of what was described as his New Year’s resolution to pursue world peace, President Donald Trump, from his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort, oversaw the invasion of Venezuela and the extradition of its president, Nicolás Maduro, to the United States on charges of drug trafficking.
This alarming event does not stand alone. It comes amid a steady accumulation of brazen assertions of power by leaders from multiple continents, each one adding to the sense of global instability. While many nations express ongoing concern about the number of migrants crossing their borders, a far more pressing anxiety is emerging – the prospect of aggressors doing the same. As the world watches on in growing unease, I am reminded of the psalmist’s question: “Why do the nations rage?”
Family campaigner James Dobson dies
en staff
Date posted: 21 Aug 2025
Influential US evangelical author and psychologist James Dobson died today, Thursday, it has just been announced.
News agency Associated Press described him as "a child psychologist who founded the conservative ministry Focus on the Family and was a politically influential campaigner against abortion and LGBTQ+ rights". He was 89.
Trump in Narnia
Date posted: 7 Jul 2026
Dear Editor,
I found Jon Kuhrt’s interpretation of C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle as a prophetic parable for contemporary geopolitics to be intriguing and compelling (en online, posted 17 April).
Donald Trump unleashed
Well, we are roughly a month into the Trump presidency and the character of the new White House is becoming very clear.
Although I have a track record of sounding the alarm regarding Donald J. Trump, in the New Year of 2025 I was trying to be quite balanced on a number of occasions. In one column I pondered whether we would get ‘Trump unleashed’ or ‘Trump lite’? That I even suggested the latter was a sign that I thought it might be possible: lots of aggressive noise but not the political meltdown that many (myself at times) feared. A few weeks in, I would like to amend that brave optimism on my part. It is ‘Trump unleashed.’