Spiritual Politics
Unconvinced
By Mark Silk — February 5, 2008
Andrew Martinez answers a reader’s question about whether John McCain has accepted Jesus as his Lord and personal savior in his Washington Post blog today.
New leaders for the LDS Church
By janshipps — February 4, 2008
The identity of at least one of the new leaders of the LDS Church is a signal that Mormonism is no longer the tradition that it used to be.
LDS Love Loss for GOP
By rvineis — February 4, 2008
Richard Cullen of the Politico alerts those keeping track at home of Tuesday’s big contest to move Utah out of the Mike Huckabee column. According to Cullen, many Mormons still harbor great resentment from Huck’s “the Devil and Jesus are brothers” slight. In the general election against a Democrat, polls have the sunny Baptist losing […]
Religious Test
By rvineis — February 4, 2008
ABC’s John Paulos has a few questions on religion for the candidates.
Dems Heart Huckabee
By rvineis — February 4, 2008
Brett Grainger of the Christian Science Monitor has an interesting take on Mike Huckabee. Grainger feels that Huck’s progressivism has widened fissures in the evangelical movement that bode ill for the GOP. Grainger: "Republicans can no longer take Evangelicals for granted simply by beating up the old piñatas of abortion and gay marriage. While a […]
Faith Based Controversy
By rvineis — February 4, 2008
David Kuo and John J. DiIulio’s NYT piece on faith based initiatives last week caused quite a stir. Check out the reactions from the current head of the White House department they criticize, a minister preaching the establishment clause, the general counsel of the American Jewish Committee, and the president of a Secular Humanist society. […]
Latino Evangelicals
By Mark Silk — February 4, 2008
In today’s Sacramento Bee, Aurelio Rojas has an instructive profile of Samuel Rodriguez, Assembly of God pastor and head of the 18,000-member National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference–the go-to guy for presidential candidates interested in courting the Latino evangelical vote. Rodriguez is excruciatingly even-handed in his comments, finding a nice thing to say about all remaining […]
The UnObama
By Mark Silk — February 4, 2008
The struggle against cognitive dissonance continued for Mike Huckabee’s disappearing campaign in the run-up to Super Tuesday. Speaking over the weekend at Church of Christ-affiliated Faulkner University in Montgomery, Alabama, Huckabee declared, “I want to be president of everybody,” while many in the crowd of hundreds waved signs that read, “Us Against Them!”
Romney’s Mormonism
By janshipps — February 4, 2008
When LDS Church president Gordon B. Hinckley died last week, Mitt Romney broke the non-stop campaigning he was doing in preparation for super-Tuesday and traveled to Salt Lake City for Saturday’s funeral observances. For those familiar with the Mormon tradition, the candidate’s decision to attend the funeral was not a surprise.
But who will they vote for?
By Mark Silk — February 3, 2008
Nicholas Kristof shows evangelicals the love.
Evangelical Democrats
By Mark Silk — February 2, 2008
On the eve of Super Tuesday, Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean is agitating for an exit poll question asking Democratic voters if they consider themselves born again or evangelical Christians. He would like to give the lie to the popular belief that (white) evangelicals only vote Republican. Of course, in general elections at least […]
Islamobashing
By Mark Silk — February 1, 2008
Juan Cole has a critique in Salon of the anti-Islamic rhetoric of the GOP candidates. As he notes, President Bush effectively turned American Muslims into Democrats. How much difference it will make beating up on “Islamofascism” and its cognates is not yet clear. But given that Americans remain honor-bound to respect Islam as a legitimate […]
Meaningful No More
By Mark Silk — February 1, 2008
In one of his widely circulated emails, Tikkun editor and “spiritual progressive” Michael Lerner, who once sold Hillary Clinton on the Politics of Meaning, more or less endorses Obama. As in: Obama is a spiritual progressive. He believes that human beings are equally valuable whether they are white or black, American or Asian or African […]
Obama and the Jews
By Mark Silk — January 31, 2008
My colleague Ron Kiener has an excellent analysis on his blog of Obama’s “Jewish problem,” making use of the Florida exit polls. There does seem to be a widespread impression that Obama is soft on support for Israel, fueled in no small part by ugly emails circulating around the Internet. The organized Jewish community clearly […]
What Hinckley Begat
By rvineis — January 31, 2008
Time’s Dan van Biema has a piece on the significant legacy of LDS President Gordon Hinckley. The article relies on Spiritual Politics contributor Jan Shipps’ expertise and hypothesizes that without Hinckley a Mormon’s presidential campaign would not gain traction outside LDS locales. van Biema on Romney: "But were it not for Hinckley’s relentless 20-year publicity […]
Mark Silk
Spiritual Politics
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
