Now is not the time to hedge bets. The Obama administration ought to be pressing its advantages and racking up some victories.
Eternal Culture War: Pat Buchanan on Notre Dame and Sotomayor
The original culture warrior has softened his rhetoric, but the message, aired all day long on various networks (it seems) is no less divisive than in the heady days of the early ’90s.
By the Way: Religious Right Losing its Grip?
College Democrats at Pat Robertson’s Regent U., Notre Dame’s refusal to rescind an invitation to the pro-choice president—younger evangelicals and Catholics are in rebellion and it doesn’t bode well for the once-commanding presence of the religious right.
Jewish State, Islamic State: All States are Religious
All nations contribute to the management and definition of religion so it’s neither necessary, nor possible, to identify any state as definitively “religious” or “secular.” To choose is largely political.
Ideology is More Than Skin Deep: Why I Can’t Get Along To Go Along
The differences among religious folk in this country—once these issues make their way into politics—manifest in real divisions of money and power and security. To think that these conflicts can be resolved with mild-mannered compromises between Third Way and centrist evangelicals underestimates their importance.
Come Let Us Reason Together: A Response to Critics of Evangelical/Progressive Initiative
“Come Let Us Reason Together,” which focused on building bridges between white evangelicals and progressives, unleashed strong criticism from the religious left, much of which challenged the initiative’s definition of "progressive." Robert P. Jones, an adviser to CLURT, responds.
RD News Round-Up—December 8, 2008: Proposition 8—The Rematch; California Supreme Court Justice in Religious Right’s Crosshairs; American Family Association’s 40th Birthday; and “The Last Languages Campaign,” Breakaway Episcopalians, and “Counterfeit Pro-Lifer[s].”
Keeping God Out of Science Class in an Obama Administration
A generation after the infamous Scopes Trial, a biology teacher, Susan Epperson, went to court and won the right to teach evolution theory. Even the election of a new, more science-friendly administration, however, does not ensure that the Bible will no longer be used as a science textbook.
If we allow the progressive movement to be reactive without first building the shared values and beliefs that make such actions sustainable, then our house will turn out to have been built upon sand. And when the electoral rains come, we will be washed away...
Instead of looking to earthly things and earthly power to bless us, we are to be a blessing in the world. Instead of caring so much that we become overwhelmed by the wicked ways of the world, we are to live our lives as a blessing to others. It is up to us to create a secure world.
The Kids are Religious Right: Punk Rock & Pro-Life
Who is that tattooed, pierced kid with the pink hair and the “You Will Not Mock Our God” T-shirt? How confusion about evangelicalism has obscured the Catholic influences of pro-life youth.
Godless Liberals: The Myth of the Secular Enlightenment
The Enlightenment was not, as is often assumed, exclusively secular. In fact, religious Protestants, Jews and Catholics played a key role in imagining a tolerant, but believing, society.
RD News Round-Up—September 22, 2008
Evangelicals on torture; BornAliveTruth.org targets Obama; Focus on the Family and gays; the Evangelical Youth Vote; Regnery's Islamophobia; the Religious Left
Sacred&Profane: The Sacred Pelvis
More than Tupac or Marilyn or Di or Kurt or Jimi, the cult of Elvis transcends labels like industry or entertainment; it is worthy of church, but the spirit of Elvis cannot be institutionalized...
It all rides on the passage of California’s anti-same-sex marriage initiative, according to the AFA’s Don Wildmon
Would Christian employees be comfortable being forced by their employers to say Happy Hanukah or Happy Kwanzaa or Happy Ramadan to their customers?
Islamophobia, Rachel Ray, and Dunkin’ Donuts
Rachel Ray is wearing a black and white scarf in a recent ad campaign for Dunkin Donuts and Michelle Malkin screams “kufiyah!” Apparently, black and white scarves mean that you support violent jihad.
Dispatches From the Beltway: Horton Hears Progressive Religion
With the success of We Believe Ohio et al., progressive religious voices are breaking through...
RDBook: The Lost Scopes Archive
A new book on the Scopes “Monkey Trial” reveals history through people, images, and good old soap opera.
Historical Revisionism Jujitsu: Religious Right Celebrates End of Interracial Marriage Ban
By “celebrating” liberal victories years after they’re even remotely controversial, the religious right rewrites itself into history’s good book while continuing to play to the worst elements in our contemporary culture.
Historical Revisionism Jujitsu: Religious Right Celebrates End of Interracial Marriage Ban
By “celebrating” liberal victories years after they’re even remotely controversial, the religious right rewrites itself into history’s good book while continuing to play to the worst elements in our contemporary culture.
Outrage is often the first step to enlightenment, compassion, and justice, but apparently not in New Haven; a tour through recent stories on gay marriage, offensive art, and religious kitsch.
Megachurch Pastor Rod Parsley calls for America to “fulfill its divine purpose” by destroying “this false religion.”
Dispatches from the Beltway: Beyond the Graying and Greening Religious Right
Less strident, less partisan, less defensive—the emerging evangelical center defies the stereotype...
A crop of new books on the waning influence of conservative Christianity in American politics.