Mark Silk
Mark Silk is Professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and director of the college's Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life. He is a Contributing Editor of the Religion News Service
All Stories by Mark Silk
With Friends Like These…
By Mark Silk — July 9, 2008
From GOM interview with organizer of the Denver conclave of evangelical leaders rallying to John McCain: “Staver said in an interview yesterday that much of the Denver meeting was focused on building a long term strategy for the Christian Right to avoid getting stuck with another figure like McCain…” That’s lesser-of-two-evils with a vengeance.
Hispanic Evangelicals
By Mark Silk — July 9, 2008
In the wake of yesterday’s LULAC meeting, the Obama campaign was on the phone with 30 Hispanic evangelical pastors this a.m., and Brody’s got the story. Hispanic evangelicals have been an interesting swing vote over the past few election cycles, going to the GOP in the early part of the decade and then edging back […]
To the Left
By Mark Silk — July 9, 2008
On NBC’s “Today,” Obama sought to counter charges that he is triangulating himself into the center by pointing out, among other things, that he has consistently supported faith-based initiatives. This may be an area, however, where he has made an adjustment to the left. In The Audacity of Hope, he writes: [O]ne can envision certain […]
Jew v. Jew
By Mark Silk — July 9, 2008
For the past three decades, Jewish conservatives (call them neocons if you will) have been grinding their teeth at the stubborn insistence of their co-religionists on voting Democratic. Now, for the first time since Jimmy Carter, they see an opportunity to wean at least a sizable portion of them away to the GOP, and they […]
Catholic Obama?
By Mark Silk — July 9, 2008
In a rather odd, presumably tongue-in-cheek post on WaPo’s On Faith, Tony Stevens-Arroyo proposes, in a positive sense, a “secret” connection between Barack Obama and Catholicism. He suggests that Obama may have been influenced by Catholic social thought when he was working as an organizer in Chicago–and although the influence is not so much as […]
Church and State, Chicago style
By Mark Silk — July 8, 2008
Obama, speaking to LULAC today: I was reminded of this a few years ago when I attended a naturalization workshop at St. Pius Church in Pilsen. As I was walking down the aisle, I saw people clutching small American flags, waiting for their turn to be called up so they could begin the long process […]
Cultural Time Out
By Mark Silk — July 8, 2008
OK, by no stretch is this about religion and the campaign but I couldn’t resist. JULY 8–Lured by $1 beer and the prospect of “hot chicks” and “hardcore fights,” thousands of Arkansans were duped last month into appearing as extras in comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest staged mayhem. Cohen and his confederates organized cage fighting […]
Obama on the Gap
By Mark Silk — July 8, 2008
Lest you think Obama is unaware of the religion gap, here’s a passage, from page 201 of his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope: The single biggest gap in party affiliation among white Americans is not between men and women, or between those who reside in so-called red states and those who reside in blue […]
Religion Gap Lives
By Mark Silk — July 8, 2008
Gallup’s out with a new poll that shows that yes, Virginia, there is a religion (or, if you prefer, a God) gap. The issue at hand is not, as in the exit polls, frequency of worship attendance but whether religion is or is not “important in my life.” In the aggregate, McCain leads 50-40 among […]
The Abortion Vote
By Mark Silk — July 8, 2008
For a generation, abortion has been the central front in the culture wars, the issue on which the two parties most clearly divide. The GOP party platform cleaves to the most rigorous of pro-life positions, supporting a constitutional amendment and legislation that would guarantee full rights, including Fourteenth Amendment protections, to the unborn. There’s no […]
Better Course of Valor
By Mark Silk — July 7, 2008
Besides the lawsuit, did the Obama really want its faith-based youth army to be marching under nearly the same banner as the Home-schooled Children’s Crusade? Not bloody likely. So the Joshua Generation is searching for a new name. “Obamolescents” seems like something the Catholic Church would just as soon forget. “The Young and the Faithful”? […]
The Limbaugh Nut
By Mark Silk — July 7, 2008
Zev Chafets’ soft-edged profile of Rush Limbaugh in yesterday’s NYT prompts the question: Which part of the Republican Party does Limbaugh represent? Here’s what he told Chafets his own presidential agenda would seek to accomplish: 1. Open the continental shelf to drilling. Ditto the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 2. Establish a 17 percent flat tax. […]
Obama at the AME
By Mark Silk — July 7, 2008
Now up on YouTube, Obama’s speech to the African Methodist Episcopal Convention in St. Louis Saturday continues the theme of service that he spoke of in his earlier addresses last week. The Fourth of July could not be, he said a “passive celebration,” but had to involve “service, and sacrifice and each of us doing […]
Which sharp edges?
By Mark Silk — July 6, 2008
Yesterday, Obama had the following to say about appealing to white evangelicals (according to Jonathan Weisman’s dispatch in today’s WaPo: “If we show up,” Obama told reporters aboard his campaign plane as he left Montana on Saturday, “if we let folks know that we’re interested in them and we share a lot of common values, […]
