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
Au Naturel
By Mark Silk — June 11, 2008
A couple of days ago, the New York Catholic Conference, eight bishops strong, issued a pronunciamento on same-sex marriage in response to Gov. David Paterson’s announcement that the Empire State would recognize any such marriage conducted in another jurisdiction. In expressing their unhappiness, the bishops made plain that they were not arguing on behalf of […]
Onward Obama Soldiers
By Mark Silk — June 11, 2008
The Obamaites are ramping up religious outreach for the general. Yesterday, in a Chicago law office, Obama met with a group of 30 religious leaders, featuring African-American denominational officials, the Catholic law professor Douglas Kmiec, and such evangelical luminaries as Franklin Graham and Richard Cizik. Oh and T.D. Jakes. This seems to have been a […]
HuckPac Defection
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2008
I’m posting this interesting piece of correspondence from Premil Cindy so it doesn’t get missed. A few observations: the FairTax was a fairly close second in poll #1; the questions were framed in terms of “grassroots” issues; and perhaps most importantly, since this is a poll for HuckPac, as opposed to Mike Huckabee for President, […]
Huckapoll
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2008
For what it’s worth, I just took a peek at the results of a couple of readers’ polls on Mike Huckabee’s blog, asking what issues HuckPac should focus on. “Protecting marriage in the states” won the first poll handily. “Sanctity of Life” is winning the second poll overwhelmingly. Surprised?
When John Meets Billy
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2008
Check out Brody for the latest in the twisting tale of a putative McCain-Graham meeting.
Those Obama Catholics
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2008
What’s up with Obama’s National Catholic Advisory Council? From what I hear, the members believe it’s still on, but just a word to GOM from a campaign aide–certainly nothing like the pushback that we’ve come to expect from the control room when assaults are made. This only tends to strengthen the view that religion is […]
Whose Commandments Are These Anyway?
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2008
In the Henry Institute survey discussed at length below, there’s an agree/disagree question that reads: Local communities should be allowed to post the Ten Commandments and other religious symbols in public buildings if the majority agrees. Agreement has increased modestly since 2004, from 66 percent to 71 percent. (Disgreement has also increased, but only by […]
O Henry
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2008
The quadrennial survey on religion and public life of the Henry Institute at Calvin College is out, and it’s got a wealth of interesting data. Unlike the exit polls, it sorts folks into levels of religiosity not by (asserted) frequency of worship attendance but on a kind of orthodoxy scale. In the large categories (evangelical […]
AIPAC: The Last Word
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2008
Catholic League Triumphant
By Mark Silk — June 9, 2008
Bill Donohue believes that he has single-handedly squashed Barack Obama’s National Catholic Advisory Council like a bug. That’s because, having called for the dissolution of the Council, he hasn’t been able to find any mention of it on the Obama website, and can’t get anyone from the campaign to say him aye or nay. Ergo, […]
Obama and Jerusalem, Take 3
By Mark Silk — June 9, 2008
So maybe Obama was not unadvised or guilty of “misspeaking” when he told AIPAC that he stands for an “undivided” Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Here’s Bernard Avishai’s interpretation of the comments: But even the most apparently contentious thing he said—contentious, at least, outside the room—was carefully worded. Obama said that in any two-state […]
McEvangelicals
By Mark Silk — June 9, 2008
The New York Times‘ Michael Luo sums of the state of play in re: McCain and the evangelicals. Not much to write home about: some outreach plans here, some watch-and-wait there. Oddly, there’s no mention of the veepstakes and its possible significance for ginning up evangelical enthusiasm for the GOP ticket. Here’s what I think. […]
Priestly endorsement
By Mark Silk — June 8, 2008
I’m a little behind the news on this, but a few days ago Fr. Jim Lisante, who took a dig at Obama and endorsed McCain amidst an invocation at a GOP fundraiser in Manhattan, said he had made a mistake. The mistake was not in endorsing McCain, which he claimed the right to do as […]
Religion for the General
By Mark Silk — June 7, 2008
Brody has a good story on a forthcoming religious youth outreach effort by the Obama campaign called the Joshua Generation Project. (It’s Joshua who brought the Children of Israel into the Promised Land, get it?). Newsweek has a chatty little story on a weekly prayer phone call among Obama-supporting clergy–which Mark Stricherz over at GetReligion […]
Jerusalem, Not Off the Table
By Mark Silk — June 6, 2008
My mistake. Obama’s Jerusalem comment does not seem to have been vetted by his Middle East brains trust. All he meant to say, er, was, well, as the Jerusalem Post has it: But a campaign adviser clarified Thursday that Obama believes “Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between […]
