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Articles by Dan Darling
What Do Conservatives Believe?
I’m not sure where I first encountered conservatism as a political philosophy. Was it in the Baptist environment where I was raised to love God, be faithful to family, and honor the country? Was it in the thousands of conversations I had with my father, a plumber, as we drove back and forth to construction sites? Was it in observing the patriotism of my first-generation Jewish grandfather, who fought in the Pacific in World War II? Perhaps.
Incoming ERLC president commends bills protecting the right to worship
NASHVILLE (BP) – States that have approved or are pursuing legislation protecting houses of worship from would-be protestors deserve accolades for protecting a foundational right, said incoming Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission president. “The First Amendment right to free exercise of religion is a bedrock principle of our American society,” said Evan Lenow, who will officially begin his role June 1.
NorthWoods Deaf Church launches with baptisms, fellowship, music loud enough to feel
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (BP) – When Corey Harrison struggled with deep anger in college, wondering why God created him Deaf, a friend invited him to a men’s retreat. There, Harrison recalled the love he experienced when his childhood church hired Deaf pastor Paul Cannon. “I remember the first time he signed to me,” Harrison, now himself a pastor, told Baptist Press. “I was speechless.” Harrison is pastor of NorthWoods Deaf Church, which NorthWoods Church of Evansville launched May 17.
FIRST-PERSON: How should Christians think about conflict, the use of force, and war?
iStock Metadata: Series: First PersonTopic(s): Theology & DoctrineFormat(s): Text Articles Share this post: Editor’s note: The following in an excerpt from “Biblical Wisdom for Everyday Life: Ethical Answers for Cultural Questions,” by Daniel Darling, released from B&H Publishing (May 2026). We live in a world of war. As I write, according to The Geneva Academy, which tracks war around the world, there are a total of 110 “active conflicts” on almost every continent.
FIRST-PERSON: SCOTUS arguments a promising defense of women’s sports
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in two important cases. The cases could have wide-ranging impact in the country’s ongoing debate concerning gender identity. In the first case, Little v. Hecox, the State of Idaho is being sued by a biological male identifying as “Lindsay” Hecox who wished to join the women’s cross-country team at Boise State University.
The Case for Civil Religion
The organization Americans United for Separation of Church and State, founded in 1947, declares that the “U.S. Constitution is a wholly secular document” in making the case that America is and always has been a secular nation. The authors of a new book not only refute this theory but set out to make the case that the religious character of the country is a feature, not a bug.
What about ministry gives you joy? – Dan Darling | For The Church
Ftc.co asks Dan Darling ‘What about ministry gives you joy?’.
FIRST-PERSON: Justice for college athletes
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman sent a letter to the NCAA urging them to restore all awards to female athletes who lost due to the inclusion of male athletes in sporting competitions. Earlier this year, the NCAA reversed its 15-year policy of allowing men who identify as woman to complete, restricting competition for biological females.
Separation of Church and Secularism
If armed officers of the state didn’t come to your church gathering this past weekend, demanding that you break up your unofficial and unlicensed religious gathering, you can thank, in large part, America’s largest Protestant tradition: Baptists. It was Baptists in the colonial period who worked with the Founders, particularly Madison and Jefferson, to enshrine freedom of religion in the U.S. Constitution. In fact, religious liberty is at the heart of Baptist political theology.
The Future of American Religion and Liberty
As America nears the 250th birthday of her existence as a republic, there is no shortage of Americans fretting, wondering, and ruminating on not only its future but whether this experiment in ordered liberty is a worthy one. Witness the angst with which many celebrate the annual July Fourth holiday, peppering their social media posts with the usual caveats about how terrible America is.
Peggy Noonan’s Revolution
I was a day shy of my eighth birthday when the reassuring words of President Reagan crackled over my family’s radio. Like all Americans, we were traumatized by the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, which carried, among her passengers, 38-year-old social studies teacher Christy McAuliffe. We had followed her story in the newspapers and were proud of the opportunity afforded this civilian hero, chosen from among 11,000 applicants to a special “Teacher in Space” program.
David Bhansen On the Christian Role in Secular Life on Apple Podcasts
Today, we have David Bahnsen on The Way Home Podcast! Bahnsen is the Founder, Managing Partner, and CIO of The Bahnsen Group. He is also a contributor to Forbes and a scholar with the Acton Institute. Today on The Way Home Podcast, Dan and David discuss the Christian’s role in business and the secular sphere, and how the Kingdom of God extends beyond the pew and pulpit. We also discuss David’s new book, Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life..
Bringing hope to an election year (Part 1) on Apple Podcasts
Welcome to the ERLC Podcast where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. Today, we’re talking about bringing hope to an election year.
What we learn from Serbia's intriguing fighter-jet choice
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has declared his country’s intention to acquire the Rafale jet fighter from France’s Dassault Aviation. The announcement – made while Vucic was on a two-day visit to France – noted that a firm contract signing is expected in two months. The declaration of a French fighter purchase underlines Serbia’s intention to diversify its sources of military importation, while underlining the falloff of Russian defense exports in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
BFM2000: The Only Public Theology We Need – The Land Center
Today, American Christians are vigorously debating the best ways to live out their faith in a rapidly changing, often hostile context in which we often find our beliefs on the defensive. This is not at all new. Believers from the beginning of the Republic, and long before, have wrestled with stewardship of their citizenship (see Chute, Finn, and Haykin’s The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement and Kidd’s God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution).
Why Speaker Mike Johnson should allow a vote on Ukraine and Israel aid
After contentious debate, the United States Senate passed a $95.3 billion national security supplemental. The measure helps Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan defend against totalitarian regimes bent on their destruction as well as rebuilds American defense stocks. Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan are asking for the same kind of assistance that the French gave Americans during the American Revolution.
How to Read More and With Pleasure
It’s that time of year when people make goals. I’m of the mind that a few small goals at the beginning of the year are wiser than a list of 17 milestones you’ll forget by February. I’ve come to believe this after reading Drew Dyck’s book, Your Future Self Will Thank You, a few years ago. This, and bowing to reality as I get older and know myself.
We Need Leaders Calling the Church to Faithfulness out of Love, Not Resentment Disguised as Courage
Note from Randy: Last year I endorsed Daniel Darling’s book Agents of Grace: How to Bridge Divides and Love as Jesus Loved. He’s a good brother with a good heart and a good mind, and I appreciated these thoughts he recently shared online. I certainly believe there is a time and place for constructive criticism of the church. Evangelicalism as a sub-culture is riddled with any number of failings. We should welcome and take seriously constructive criticism, and make changes where appropriate.
First person: 4th of July reflections on loving God, nation and others
By Dan Darling Director of the Land Center for Cultural Engagement at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary This year, across America, families large and small will gather and celebrate America’s 247th birthday. As we break out the fireworks (legally, of course), crank up the Lee Greenwood, and light the grill, we should reflect on how Christians should feel about this nation. Over the last few decades, believers have wrestled with their feelings toward the state.
FIRST-PERSON: How to love America
Photo via Unsplash. This year, across America, families large and small will gather and celebrate America’s 247th birthday. As we break out the fireworks (legally, of course), crank up the Lee Greenwood, and light the grill, we should reflect on how Christians should feel about this nation. Over the last few decades, believers have wrestled with their feelings toward the state.
Eternal Perspective Ministries
I often talk about the importance of forgiveness in my own life, and over the deep hurts I’ve endured. But inevitable questions about biblical forgiveness arise. Does forgiveness imply we ignore issues of justice and restitution? Does forgiveness absolve the guilt of the perpetrator? Does forgiveness imply reconciliation? It’s important for us to understand what is demanded of us in forgiveness. Forgiveness is not the same thing as reconciliation, which requires two parties willing to come together.
China Seizes Arms Exporting Opportunity in the Middle East
The Chinese Wing Loon II armed drone, seen here at an air show, reportedly costs about $1 million. Low prices and few restrictions have allowed Chinese weapons to make inroads in the Middle East as well as in South-East Asia and Africa, but low quality and reliability have begun to concern some customers.
How Christians should react when targeted
Target removed provocative Pride Month products from its stores last week after facing a significant backlash and losing a reported $9 billion as shares dropped by 12.6%. It’s a significant setback for the retailer who is no stranger to controversy. The most egregious offerings were designed by drag queens and “nonbinary” creators, including “Biblegirl666” and Erik Carnell, whose other work promotes both Satan worship and LGBTQ themes.
FIRST-PERSON: Targeting Christians?
Earlier this week, Target removed provocative Pride Month products from its stores after facing a significant backlash and losing a reported $9 billion as shares dropped by 12.6 percent. It’s a significant setback for the retailer who is no stranger to controversy. The most egregious offerings were designed by drag queens and “nonbinary” creators, including “Biblegirl666” and Erik Carnell, whose other work promotes both Satan worship and LGBTQ themes.
FIRST-PERSON: Targeting Christians?
Earlier this week, Target removed provocative Pride Month products from its stores after facing a significant backlash and losing a reported $9 billion as shares dropped by 12.6 percent. It’s a significant setback for the retailer who is no stranger to controversy. The most egregious offerings were designed by drag queens and “nonbinary” creators, including “Biblegirl666” and Erik Carnell, whose other work promotes both Satan worship and LGBTQ themes.
Supply management bill tampers with trade tools
By Dan Darling Editor’s note: Dan Darling is President, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance (CAFTA). For more information, contact Adam Taylor, Interim Executive Director, CAFTA at exec.dir@cafta.org. Few pieces of legislation being considered by Canadian parliamentarians have the potential to jeopardize more sectors than they’re seeking to protect like Bill C-282, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management).
A trading nation needs all its trade negotiations tools
Few pieces of legislation being considered by Canadian parliamentarians have the potential to affect more sectors than those they’re seeking to protect like Bill C-282, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act (supply management). In summary, the bill – put forth by the Bloc Quebecois – would prevent Canada from ever contemplating concessions in sectors regulated through the system of supply management, specifically, eggs, dairy and poultry products.
The British Military’s Winter of Discontent
As the United Kingdom confronts labor disputes, a struggling National Health Service, a possible recession, and post-Brexit depression, the nation’s formerly renowned military faces its own reckoning. While British munitions and hardware are sent to Ukraine to aid in its fight against Russia’s invasion, the lack of back-filling of capabilities has placed the armed forces – particularly the British Army – at a low state of readiness.
First-Person: Evangelicals believe dreamers deserve dignity and concern
President Biden’s visit to the border this week highlights our nation’s broken and outdated immigration system. As the New York Times reported, in the 12 months leading up to October 2022, the Border Patrol encountered 1.7 million migrants trying to cross illegally, the highest number since 1960. Its reform should be a priority on both sides of the aisle. We need authentic leadership, the kind that seeks solutions over soundbites, which has been vanishingly rare in our nation’s capital these days.
How to Stay Politically Engaged in Non-Election Years
Regardless of where you fall on the scale of interest, the most important question is how Christians should conduct themselves during this political season. The world is watching God’s people, not just for how they vote, but for how they act both online and in conversations with family and friends — even in off-election years. So how then should we behave?
What if Americans decided to love their political enemies?
For Christians such as myself, the basis of this ability to love those who disagree with us is rooted in two unique ideas. First, we believe that every human being is created in the image of God and possesses dignity and worth. Second, we have as our example Jesus, who while being unjustly crucified, urged forgiveness for his captors. Kindness, then, is not a tactic to be tried and dismissed on a whim, but a way of life.
2022 goals must include love of those from different political parties
As the calendar turned its last chapter, many of us evaluated the year that was and anticipated the year to come. Let me suggest one goal for 2022 that seems counterintuitive in a culture that rewards the opposite: loving your political enemies. Now, before you stop me and tell me how bad and extreme the other side is, you must know that I know. I’ve seen the worst kind of vitriol, division and anger from both the right and the left. It’s bad.
Restrooms should be off limits: Why political protests from all sides are out of control
President Lyndon Johnson was known to , making Cabinet members and sometimes Vice President Hubert Humphrey stand awkwardly outside the bathroom while he shouted ideas. Channeling Johnson's crudeness, left-wing activists cornered Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a moderate Democrat, inside a public restroom Sunday at Arizona State University, and, in a sign of our performative social media age, recorded their antics and posted the video online. Sinema's sin?
'Evangelical' is a term with heavy baggage. But Christians shouldn't give up on it.
If you were to ask members of my church how they identify, you’d probably not hear the word “evangelical.” They’d probably tell you “I’m a Bible-believing Christian,” or “I’m a born-again follower of Jesus,” or “I attend a Southern Baptist church.” Evangelical is a term that rank-and-file evangelicals don’t walk around calling themselves. It’s a term used more by religion reporters, historians and as an identifier for cross-denominational institutions that adhere to a core set of beliefs.
'Evangelical' is a term with heavy baggage. But Christians shouldn't give up on it.
If you were to ask members of my church how they identify, you’d probably not hear the word “evangelical.” They’d probably tell you “I’m a Bible-believing Christian,” or “I’m a born-again follower of Jesus,” or “I attend a Southern Baptist church.” Evangelical is a term that rank-and-file evangelicals don’t walk around calling themselves. It’s a term used more by religion reporters, historians and as an identifier for cross-denominational institutions that adhere to a core set of beliefs.
In Here, Out There: On Assessing Spiritual Threats
This isn’t a typical One Little Word post, but it’s a Sunday afternoon and I had an idea I wanted to think through here, mainly to complement, I think, the Sunday essay from my friend David French. I really appreciate David’s thought-provoking work in The Dispatch and in National Review before that. Before you finish this, let me remind you to always read David. David this week is taking on the question: What should the church be more primarily worried about?
Beware the Temptation to Be a Pharisee on Social Media
Resist the Pharisee Temptation on Social Media By Daniel Darling If you could have chosen one type of person to cancel in the first century, it would have been a tax collector. Jewish people, rightly skeptical of Roman power, viewed tax collectors as turncoats, those willingly colluding with the government to collect heavy taxes while taking a hefty commission off the top. Their work was gross, profiting off the economic misery of their own people.
They Came, They Saw, They Told: Witnesses to a Miracle
We should not dismiss the significance of who it is cast in the role of discovering and announcing Jesus’s resurrection. A handful of ordinary women, deputized to announce the news that made all of creation, from Eden, groan in anticipation. Today it may not seem so strange that women were the first to see the empty tomb of Jesus or that women were the first ones to announce the empty tomb to the rest of Jesus’ followers.
What Goes In
When I was a kid, my parents and most of the people around me in our largely Christian environment often issued strong warnings about the negative impact of pop culture on my soul. “What goes in, comes out,” was the refrain. This was the 80’s when concern about Hollywood’s corrosive influence was bipartisan. Both Tipper Gore and James Dobson were nervous about it. They were all right. The Bible tells us quite often about the importance of managing our influences.
What Abraham Lincoln Can Teach Us About the 2020 Election
In March of 1865, President Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech to a weary nation. The Civil War was winding down and would be over in a month. This abbreviated address, shared before a very small and subdued crowd in the midst of a national crisis, is often overshadowed by The Gettysburg Address.
The Way Home Podcast on Apple Podcasts
274 episodes Conversations on Church, Community, and Culture Conversations on Church, Community, and Culture JAN 24, 2019 The Way Home: Jonathan Pokluda on what the Bible says about adulting The Way Home: Jonathan Pokluda on what the Bible says about adulting Every day, another Millennial becomes an adult. For many, the transition can be a bumpy one. The clear expectations they had at home or in school are gone, and they may feel unprepared to face adult life.
Christians Were Built for This Moment
In the last month, I’ve had two different, but very similar conversations, about 2020 and the coming Presidential election. Each told me that if their preferred candidate didn’t win, “we are doomed.” What’s interesting is one conversation was with a Trump supporter and one was with a Biden supporter. I found myself having the same pushback: I get your concerns, but I want to assure you that we will be okay.
India’s Defense Indigenization Effort Takes a Bold Step
Call it an act of desperation, a shrewd move, or a superficial gesture. Regardless, the announcement by India's Ministry of Defense on August 9 that it plans to ban foreign-sourced procurement of 101 military products bears watching. Maintaining the world's third-largest standing military with 1.4 million uniformed soldiers prepared for combat across the air, land and sea domains means procuring a lot of hardware.
Free trade lets us feed ourselves and the world
By Dan Darling The WTO recently sounded the alarm that because of COVID-19, global trade may fall more than 30 per cent this year — three times the decline during the 2009 global recession. And these distressing figures don’t yet account for the possibility the pandemic may make countries turn to protectionism, especially when it comes to food. Doing so would only make things worse, especially for post-pandemic recovery efforts.
We need to get a new NAFTA deal done
Delaying ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement at this stage may only have negative impact on relations with our trading partners, who reserve the right to move ahead on a bilateral deal if Canada takes too long to ratify. | File photo It’s time to restore predictability to trade in North America. The best way to do that is to pass legislation to implement the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement without delay.
CUSMA: Let's get it done
It’s time to restore predictability to trade in North America. The best way to do that is to pass legislation to implement the Canada United-States Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) without delay. After three years of negotiating and waiting, Canadian farmers, agri-food exporters need certainty and stability. READ MORE: Industry groups push for quick ratification of North American trade deal Let’s be honest, there is no reopening the deal or amending it at this stage.
CUSMA, Let’s get it done
It’s time to restore predictability to trade in North America. The best way to do that is to pass legislation to implement the Canada United-States Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) without delay. After three years of negotiating and waiting, Canadian farmers, agri-food exporters need certainty and stability. That’s why it is encouraging to see the House Trade Committee set to wrap up its study of the implementing legislation this week and the Senate already preparing to review CUSMA.
An open letter to federal party leaders
All party leaders and their candidates are asked to take the time to appreciate the important contribution that agri-food exports make to the Canadian economy.
Watch: Faith Leaders and Scientists Discuss the Unity and Conflicts of Their Beliefs
In the popular YouTube series Middle Ground, two parties are positioned opposite one another to see where their beliefs, value systems and understandings align and fragment. In the past, the series has done Black Lives Matter activists and police officers, Trump supporters and immigrants and now, religious leaders and scientists. The results may surprise you. In the video, a Christian pastor, Jewish rabbi and Buddhist teacher dialogue with a volcanologist (awesome), geologist and chemist.
Merriam Webster's Word of the Year Is 'Justice'
Driven by a news cycle occupied with debates over the rights of migrants, racial profiling and police brutality, Merriam Webster has selected “justice” as its 2018 word of the year. Dictionary.com selected “misinformation” and Oxford selected “toxic.” (h/t USA Today) Representatives with Merriam Webster cite stories like the Robert Mueller investigation as further fuel to select justice as 2018’s preeminent word.
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