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
I have great respect for that whore
By Mark Silk — March 4, 2008
John Hagee has sent the following statement to CBN’s David Brody denying that he’s anti-Catholic. I have always had great love for Catholic people and great respect for the Catholic Church. My wife comes from a Catholic family and millions of my viewers are Catholics. I am shocked and saddened to learn of the mischaracterization […]
Hagee, McCain, and the Jews
By Mark Silk — March 3, 2008
Let us state at the outset that John Hagee’s anti-Catholicism goes well beyond the kind of odium theologicum that derives from tough but honest differences over the right path to salvation. So far as he is concerned, this “false religious system” is responsible for the Holocaust. Setting aside the glee of the liberal blogosphere, it’s […]
UCC v. IRS
By Mark Silk — March 2, 2008
Today’s Hartford Courant features a commentary by the Rev. Davida Foy Crabtree, conference minister of the Connecticut Conference United Church of Christ, defending the UCC against the IRS investigation into whether the church violated rules against political engagement in the matter of Barack Obama’s address to its General Synod last June. Two days ago, the […]
Obama and the Jews
By Mark Silk — March 1, 2008
New York Times religion writer Neela Banerjee reports. Meanwhile, former ambassador Daniel Kurtzer is on the trail for Obama in Columbus Sunday.
Time Out for Some Demography
By Mark Silk — February 29, 2008
Last Monday, the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released the first analytical hunk of what it is calling the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey (not to be confused with earlier Pew-sponsored “American Religious Landscape and Political Attitudes” surveys). Thanks to the Pew name, a fab marketing strategy, and a really cool website, it has […]
The Complainant
By Mark Silk — February 29, 2008
James Hutchins, the complainant in the IRS investigation of the United Church of Christ, has written in to suggest that I based my earlier remarks on the UCC press release, not the complaint itself. Actually, I based them on the Hartford Courant story and the IRS letter. I don’t think I’d say anything different based […]
Texohio poll
By Mark Silk — February 29, 2008
Today’s Houston Chronicle/Zogby poll of likely voters in the upcoming Democratic primaries in Texas and Ohio shows Clinton up strongly with Catholics, mostly white in Ohio and mostly Hispanic in Texas. Protestants split evenly between Clinton and Obama in Ohio, go strongly to Obama in Texas; others in both states are for Obama. The non-Catholic […]
But is it good for Israel?
By Mark Silk — February 28, 2008
Hagee endorses McCain. Catholics for Huckabee happy.
Stop the presses
By Mark Silk — February 28, 2008
Brody flags a document from the Obama campaign’s religious outreach team highlighting their candidate’s success with religious voters–an array of data drawn from the exit polls. He concludes that Obama’s not conceding the Church vote to McCain.
Obama, the UCC, and the IRS
By Mark Silk — February 28, 2008
Today the Hartford Courant has bannered across its front page Elizabeth Hamilton’s story on an IRS investigation of the United Church of State (er. make that Christ) resulting from Barack Obama’s address to the annual convention of that denomination (which is his own) last summer. (You can check out the IRS’ February 20 letter here […]
Diplomat for Obama
By Mark Silk — February 28, 2008
Yesterday we had a visit at Trinity from Daniel Kurtzer, now of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, whose three-decade career in the State Department included three years as President Clinton’s ambassador to Egypt and four years as President Bush’s ambassador to Israel. (After leaving that job and the department in 2005, he spent a […]
Down Ticket in Indy
By Mark Silk — February 27, 2008
The 2008 election campaign, as we understand it, involves more than just the presidential race, and we hope to keep track of religious dimensions of other races, as these pop into view. First up (for us, at least) is the March 11 special election in Indiana’s seventh congressional district. It features Democrat Andre Carson running […]
From the belly of the vast right wing conspiracy.
By Mark Silk — February 26, 2008
Watch Hillary Clinton talk about what her faith has done for her, in an interview with David Brody appearing on the 700 Club. Pat Robertson calls her a “brave lady.” I guess the 90s were a long time ago.
Go Figure
By Mark Silk — February 26, 2008
A week ago, SurveyUSA showed Clinton winning regular worship attenders in Texas and Obama winning those who attend little or not at all. Now the same pollster shows their positions reversed. In both cases by healthy margins. So the more Texans see of the two candidates, the more the pious like Barack and the more […]
Tejanos
By Mark Silk — February 26, 2008
There’s evidence that Obama is gaining some ground among Hispanics in Texas. A few days ago, CNN’s polling director Keating Holland, commenting on a survey showing a dead heat in Texas, said he thought Clinton might well receive two-thirds of the Hispanic vote there. Yesterday’s SurveyUSA poll, showing Obama up by four points, had him […]
