Another week flown by–here are a couple of the ILYBYGTH-themed stories from around the interwebs that caught our attention this week:

Liberty v. BYU: What does it mean? At DN.

It’s unclear exactly why football has become the sport most linked with Christianity, but it could be their shared qualities.

Its worshippers — ahem, fans — congregate weekly in grand structures adorned with posters of past glory, reminiscent of bibilical scenes depicted on stained-glass windows; games begin with a procession onto the field, often accompanied by rituals — from Miami’s fire extinguisher fog to Clemson’s run down the hill; and on the green 100-yard altar, players sacrifice their bodies, push themselves through pain and exhaustion, learning important lessons of sacrifice for a better good.

• From the ILYBYGTH archives: Is Liberty really willing to pay the full price of big-time sports?

Will Democrats survive as the “party of the rich”? At FT.

The richest 15 percent of House districts are now represented by 56 Democrats and just 10 Republicans. In 2018, voters in America’s wealthiest counties, cities, and neighborhoods made a decisive turn toward the Democrats, and now America’s traditional party of the left—whether it admits it or not—is the party of the rich.

How much stuff do teachers buy for their classrooms? It’s a lot. Teacher responses at WaPo.

Why? Because every child NEEDS these items and because we are a Title 1 school; many cannot afford the necessities. Kids need to have equal supplies; including food. I don’t regret spending this money as I can teach my students when they have all the tools needed to succeed.

Heading for a breakdown? The history of civil war in America at AC.

a party system ending without a consensual replacement means that longstanding customs and norms that undergird constitutional relationships are quietly pared away. In other words, well before legal confrontations over legitimacy, the erosion of informal rules sets up adjudicating crises over formal rules. This was a feature of the final deterioration in Congress before 1860, marked by brawls on the floor of the House and a bloody assault in the Senate.

Could it get this bad again…?

U Washington’s College Republicans booted out of the national organization for “hurtful and inappropriate conduct,” at CHE.

What can happen when a young-earth creationist doubts his faith? At BL.

I asked hard questions about what I believed about science, the world, and the Bible. I prayed for wisdom, battled doubts, and struggled with painful internal conflict. On one occasion, I asked myself what I would do if, to remain a Christian, I had to choose between YEC and my growing commitment to evolution. I then experienced a deep discomfort when I didn’t have an immediate answer.

What happens when a conservative Christian church tries to take over a liberal college town? At RNS.

Led by controversial pastor Douglas Wilson, Christ Church of Moscow has for years been planning a spiritual takeover of the town — transforming both its politics and its soul. Wilson is gentle and soft-spoken when not behind the pulpit but will go head-to-head with anyone in a debate.

Town/church tensions?

Phillip Johnson, architect of intelligent-design movement, dies at 79. Obit at CT.

Johnson’s landmark book, Darwin on Trial, argued that Darwinian evolution didn’t have real evidence or good arguments, but was instead “another kind of fundamentalism.” When it was published in 1991, Darwin on Trial galvanized a group of Christians who opposed the theory of evolution, but also wanted to distance themselves from Bible-based creationism, which could not be taught in public schools.

There are “evangelicals,” and there are “evangelicals.” On the difference between “cosmopolitan” and “populist” white evangelicals at AB.

Do you hang out at an InterVarsity chapter at Harvard? Do your friends watch Huckabee on FOX News? Do you study sociology at Wheaton College? . . . Each of these persons can make an authentic claim to evangelical identity. But if you were only hanging out in the faculty lounge at an evangelical college or with humanitarians at an evangelical NGO in Phnom Penh, there’s a good chance you were shocked by the 81 percent. The election exposed the many evangelicalisms that have been there all along.

The New Deal as Social Gospel, at R&P.

R&P: Can the New Deal be understood as the political expression of Roosevelt’s faith?

JB: That’s very well put! He wasn’t alone in shaping it, of course. Harry Hopkins, who served as Roosevelt’s right-hand man throughout the administration, was a committed Social Gospel Methodist from Iowa. Eleanor Roosevelt had worked in Social Gospel programs following her return from boarding school abroad. And Frances Perkins, who served as FDR’s Secretary of the Treasury for all of his 13 years in office, was very devout and theologically informed, and she was the architect of Social Security, among other programs. She very consciously pursued her political work as an expression of her Social Gospel commitments.

When Jesus hung out on the Left…

Chicago’s teachers demanded smaller class sizes. Will that help students? A review at TC.

The results were clear: students in the smaller classes performed significantly better on math and reading tests, with a gain of 4 percentile points or more. The benefits of smaller classes were even larger in schools with low-income students.

More recent research indicates that the benefits of being taught in smaller classes persist long after students have moved on to the next grade. They become more likely to complete high school and go to college and less likely to end up becoming parents in their teens, to name some of the most compelling examples.

Queen Betsy’s speech about MI schools—fact-checked at DFP.

DeVos: “ESSA invites each state to determine their standards and develop innovative assessments that focus on achievement and excellence. States can also set aside a certain percentage of federal taxpayer funding to use in new and creative ways. There’s a student-centered funding pilot program for dollars to support students — not buildings. I like to picture kids with backpacks representing funding for their education following them wherever they go to learn.”

This is a school choice absolutist mantra, and frankly, I just don’t get it. School choice absolutists bemoan the dollars spent on buildings and administration, and sometimes on teachers, saying money should be spent on children instead. But kids learn are taught by teachers, and generally indoors. To repair Detroit’s dilapidated school buildings would cost about $500 million.

Will Chief Justice John Roberts help Trump survive impeachment? At Slate.

There’s every reason to think that Roberts—conservative, Republican, and lifelong believer in expansive executive power—is not going to want history to remember him as the guy who emptied the ashtrays of a carnival barker president.

Did teacher power put a Democrat in the KY governor’s mansion? At CHH.

Beshear’s running mate Jacqueline Coleman introduced the governor-elect shortly after all precincts reported Beshear led the race by 4,658 votes.

“It’s official,” Coleman said. “The war on public education is over.”

In his victory speech Beshear said public education will be his top priority, and a pension is a “promise.”

“To our educators, this is your victory,” Beshear said. “From now on, the doors of your state’s capitol will always be open.”

Wisconsin considers a mandatory-cursive bill for its schools, at WSJ.

the bill’s chief Senate sponsor, Sen. Luther Olsen, R-Ripon, submitted written testimony in a cursive font that he composed on a computer.

Bart Simpson on cursive: “Well, I know hell, damn, and fart.”

• The history of conservative campaigns to keep cursive alive, here at ILYBYGTH.