Miles Smith Journalist Profile

Articles

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Doctrine of Christian Warfighting

Jan 15, 2025 | providencemag.com | Miles Smith |James Diddams |Rebeccah Heinrichs |Marc LiVecche

Donald trump has nominated Army Major Pete Hegseth to be the next Secretary of Defense. The Princeton-educated Fox News TV personality and former soldier served in Iraq and Afghanistan before resigning his commission in protest over the army’s supposed unfair treatment of soldiers with politically conservative views. Hegseth is interesting because he is the first potential cabinet secretary in almost a century to wed unambiguously Protestant Christianity with his understanding of warmaking.
The paradox of the American West

Jan 11, 2025 | washingtonexaminer.com | Miles Smith

The first installment of Kevin Costner’s new Western film series Horizon: An American Saga isn’t necessarily the best Western you’ll ever watch. It’s thoroughly conventional in many ways. American settlers fight Indians and the elements to build a town, which eventually becomes a representative locale of the Old West. It’s set in the 1870s, and 150 years ago, in 1875, the American Republic was fighting though the thick of the decadeslong Indian Wars.
Do not murder

Jan 7, 2025 | wng.org | Miles Smith

Back in November, the British House of Commons legalized euthanasia. The decision to sanction the judicial murder of Britain’s dying people enjoyed broad support from the Labour Party. A sizable number of Conservative members of Parliament joined Labour in support. The former Tory prime minister said he supported the change.
Piety, Politics, and Protestantism in the Era of Trump

Nov 18, 2024 | theaquilareport.com | Miles Smith

There is historical precedent to correlate an embrace of more conservative conceptions of political authority with an accompanying an increase in piety, and vice versa. A symbiosis between conservative politics and more substantive Christian piety typified the Réveil, a religious and in some ways political revival movement that swept France, the Low Countries, Switzerland, and parts of Germany in the second and third decades of the 19th Century.
The people rule

Nov 11, 2024 | wng.org | Miles Smith

Donald Trump is president again, and inevitably, the alliance of progressive and centrist evangelicals aligned against him will accuse conservative evangelical Protestants who overwhelmingly voted for the former president—some seeing him as the lesser of two evils—of sullying the witness of the Church by supporting him. The idea behind this, of course, is deeply theocratic.
The Gorilla in the Room: F5 and a Commitment to Local Markets Help COOP Thrive

Nov 8, 2024 | thebrewermagazine.com | Miles Smith

COOP Ale Works in Oklahoma City has a well-established identity among craft beer aficionados in its home state and beyond. That’s largely due to the success of F5 — its flagship West Coast IPA — which Head Brewer Blake Jarolim gives credit for growing the brand into what CEO and co-founder Daniel Mercer refers to as the 800-pound gorilla in the Sooner state’s craft brewing industry.
Race, Religion, and Republic in Herman Melville's Redburn

Oct 28, 2024 | adfontesjournal.com | Miles Smith

Herman Melville published his autobiographical novel Redburn in 1849. The work proved to be one of his best, and in many ways remains his most quintessentially American novel. Redburn lacks the exoticism that typified Typee and Omoo, both set in the South Pacific. Likewise Redburn never rises to the heights of metaphysical contemplation that made Moby Dick so attractive after its rediscovery in the 1920s.
Perdition

Oct 14, 2024 | mereorthodoxy.com | Miles Smith

Hurricane Helene flooded my home state recently in a nearly-apocalyptic fashion. The death toll will be significant; entire communities have been swept away. Billions of dollars in property damage await those fortunate enough to return to homes that weren’t completely annihilated. Login to read more Sign in or create a free account to access Subscriber-only content. Sign in Register
American Christians Should Lose Their Aversion to Seeing the US as an Empire, and Empires Generally

Oct 11, 2024 | providencemag.com | Miles Smith |Nigel Biggar

Recently Tucker Carlson hosted Darryl Cooper, a historian of a sort, who proposed that Winston Churchill, the British Empire, and by proxy the American republic had spent too much time congratulating themselves for being the good guys in WWII. Churchill, said Cooper, was even the real villain of the Second World War, in his own way.
American Christians Should Lose Their Aversion to Seeing America as an Empire, and Empires Generally

Oct 11, 2024 | providencemag.com | Miles Smith |Nigel Biggar

Recently Tucker Carlson hosted Darryl Cooper, a historian of a sort, who proposed that Winston Churchill, the British Empire, and by proxy the American republic had spent too much time congratulating themselves for being the good guys in WWII. Churchill, said Cooper, was even the real villain of the Second World War, in his own way.