Obama
Muslim Outreach
By Mark Silk — January 27, 2009
There’s plenty of commentary in the offing on Obama’s interview with Al-Arabiya–here’s Klein’s early guide to it–but I want to call attention to just this exchange on President Bush’s War on Terror. Q President Bush framed the war on terror conceptually in a way that was very broad, “war on terror,” and used sometimes certain […]
The Last Word on the Inauguration
By Mark Silk — January 22, 2009
“As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, wove almost within the hour; as they richly broke […]
Warrenology
By Mark Silk — January 21, 2009
It looks like Dan Gilgoff has more or less come around to my position on Warren’s inauguration invocation. I think he’s quite right to suggest that Warren wanted to have it both ways–gesturing at inclusivity while sacrificing nothing to exclusivity. I do not presume to see into Warren’s true intentions–his heart, so to say–but it […]
Full Service
By Mark Silk — January 21, 2009
You’ve got to give the Episcopalians credit. When they want to put on a major display of establishmentarian power and glory, they sure can do it. With all the stops out for an anthem like Holy Holy Holy, you really felt that the National Prayer Service was, well, a national prayer service–conducted by a self-appointed […]
Not so simple
By Mark Silk — January 21, 2009
I liked John Williams’ version of “Simple Gifts” that Yo-Yo Ma and company performed at the Inauguration–lighter and subtler than Aaron Copeland’s famous Appalachian Spring version, where the old Shaker hymn reaches a level of fortissimo bombast that has always seemed to me at odds with that religious tradition. Even so, you wonder what the […]
Inauguration Day #3
By Mark Silk — January 20, 2009
When Rick Warren was introduced to give the invocation today, I heard a couple of discernible uh-ohs. Pretty soon, though, the African-Americans around me were responding as in church, and when he got around to saying the Lord’s Prayer, there was no shortage of people saying it with him. So, cool with them. For me, […]
Inauguration Day #1
By Mark Silk — January 20, 2009
Making my way to the mall this morning I happened to come across a small clutch of protesters, cordoned off on the north side of Constitution. They proved to be 14 members of Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church, the congregation that has managed to irritate just about everybody they come in contact with, most of […]
Homiletics
By Mark Silk — January 20, 2009
Once upon a time, New England ministers turned their attention to public affairs with election day sermons. Michael Paulson has compiled an archive of Massachusetts sermons given to mark the inauguration of the nation’s first black president. Story here. And here’s an excerpt from one given by Rev. Vicki Kemper of Amherst UCC: Do you […]
Clean Sweep
By Mark Silk — January 19, 2009
I arrived in Washington but unfortunately not in time for the “Animating the Spirit of Democracy With a Ritual of Unity and Blessing” by the D.C. community of magical and spiritual progressives. They were on hand at 2 pm at the Jefferson Memorial Plaza “to sweep the town clean” with a Witches’ Broom Dance “intended […]
Obama and religion
By Mark Silk — January 18, 2009
Best piece of reporting I’ve seen, from Eli Saslow in today’s WaPo. I like this, from his days as an organizer, based at Chicago’s Holy Rosary Catholic Church: In his free moments, he sat in his office and wrote short stories about worship and church life. Other times, he smoked cigarettes with Bill Stenzel, the […]
Obama turns other cheek
By Mark Silk — December 17, 2008
Rick Warren to invoke at Inaugural. Jeez. Update: But at least Joe Lowery’s benedicting.
The Falsani Interview
By Mark Silk — November 12, 2008
Waldman’s got the entire transcript of the Cathleen Falsani’s 2004 interview with Barack Obama on his faith. I can’t think of another future American president who spoke to a reporter at such length about his religious views. Perhaps the closest would be Robert Scheer’s September 1976 interview of Jimmy Carter in Playboy. Here’s the notorious […]
The Torch Is Passed
By Mark Silk — November 5, 2008
From Kevin Sack’s fine report from Albany, GA: Many, like the Rev. Horace C. Boyd, who was then and is now pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church, viewed the moment through the prism of biblical prophecy. If Dr. King was the movement’s Moses, doomed to die without crossing the Jordan, it would fall to Mr. Obama […]
The Obama-Khalidi Kerfuffle
By Mark Silk — October 30, 2008
My colleague Ron Kiener explodes the latest McCain-Palin scare tactic over at his blog, Bingoprof. Check it out.
At least they have Lieberman
By Mark Silk — October 29, 2008
There’s been plenty of anti-Obama sludge sluiced at the Jewish community over the past few weeks, including by the Republican Jewish Coalition. It doesn’t seem to be having any effect, however. Quinnipiac’s latest Florida poll has the Jews breaking 75-20 for Obama. Looks like another teeth-grinding year for those conservative gedoylim and their neocon cupbearers.
