I was raised in the South as a Baptist and a Republican. I was the "perfect" social conservative. I even desired to go into politics. Thus, throughout my life I was heavily involved in politics and uninvolved in theology, until I came to Criswell. During my first year I came under the influence of several professors who began to show me the political aspects of the Gospel and introduced me to authors such as Greg Boyd, John Howard Yoder, and Stanley Hauerwas. After a year there, as I continued learning about just how political the Gospel really is and how often it conflicts with what I learn from politics, I started shifting towards theology and away from politics.
Church and State
All throughout my journey, this blog has been there to reflect my views. It started in 2007 during the Republican Presidential Primaries. It was named oh-so-originally "Joshua's Political Blog". As I blogged through the 2008 election cycle, I teamed up with the Blogger's for Cornyn Coalition, and I built my first following.
After the 2008 defeat of Republicans nationwide, I saw my new title as "Republican Blogger in Exile", and thus redesigned and renamed my blog to "Code Red: Restoring Republican Dominance". I shifted my focus to the Texas Gubernatorial Race and teamed up with Texans For Honorable Leadership and blogged for both for a while. As I started to separate from politics I found that I just stopped blogging. Even so, my internet popularity hit a new high during the 2010 election cycle, as I was the number 1 Google hit for those looking for information on the election, until just two months before the election.In Fall of 2010 I desired to start blogging again and sharing what had revolutionized my life! However, Code Red was not the proper platform. I tried a slight remodel of Code Red, but it did not do the trick. So, I changed my URL to sever the link from Google to Code Red and make the blog a little more accessible, and took my blog down for a short time while I redesigned and renamed it to reflect my new direction (Ecclesiology and Political Theology). And thus was born Church and State!
(Photo Credit: Stephen Hebert Photography)
