Columns
WASPs never cease to amaze
By Mark Silk — November 9, 2010
George Bush learned to respect “life” because his mother kept her miscarried fetus in a jar?
I’m from Connecticut!
By Mark Silk — November 8, 2010
I know you’ve all been waiting for me to explain why I get to drive around for the next two years with a “Don’t Blame Me I’m From Connecticut” bumper sticker. Here goes. The citizens who showed up at polls in the Nutmeg State last Tuesday were somewhat older, whiter, richer, and more college-educated than […]
Angle and O’Donnell
By Mark Silk — November 4, 2010
The most celebrated losers on the Republican side this election year were Sharron Angle and Christine O’Donnell, who in any previous cycle since 1980 would have been identified as paladins (paladines?) of the religious right. Angle is a Southern Baptist who ran a Christian school and was endorsed by the likes of Pat Boone and […]
In an alternate universe
By Mark Silk — November 4, 2010
If there were no white evangelicals in the electorate in 2010, Americans would have chosen Democrats over Republicans as members of Congress by a margin of 55 percent to 43 percent.
God Gapology
By Mark Silk — November 3, 2010
OK, the aggregate House of Representatives exit poll shows that the good old God Gap is as wide as ever. Pew tells the story: In the great bathtub of voter behavior, everyone sloshed back towards the Republicans. That’s to say, from the white evangelicals to the nones, the GOP posted gains. Over at Huffpost, Eric […]
Election tidbits
By Mark Silk — November 3, 2010
* Among Delaware’s white college graduates, Christine O’Donnell loses by just three percentage points. * Among New York’s white males, Andrew Cuomo wins by just two percentage points. * In Pennsylvania, Sestak and Toomey split the Catholic vote. * In Kentucky, white evangelicals go for the Aqua-Buddhist by better than two to one. * In […]
VA Baptists’ Separationist Push Back
By Mark Silk — October 30, 2010
Last week, the Virginia Baptist Mission Board decided it was time to push back against the historical revisionism of Barton, Skousen, and Beck. that tries to pretend that the United States was not founded on the principle of separation of church and state. So it voted to commission a pamphlet for lay readers setting the […]
Wellness and Religion
By Mark Silk — October 28, 2010
If you’re not religious at all, it’s not going to increase your wellness to become moderately religious. Now if you become very religious, it’ll increase your wellness a little bit. According to Gallup. Moral: Don’t worry about the relationship between religiosity and wellness.
Has anyone seen Rod Dreher?
By Mark Silk — October 27, 2010
Whatever happened to Rod Dreher? As a writer he wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea. Actually, he wasn’t my cup of tea. But he had a distinctive voice that made him into Beliefnet’s premier blogger, and seems to have earned him his current gig as director of publications at Templeton. On his arrival, he moved his […]
Voting the Prosperity Gospel
By Mark Silk — October 26, 2010
I know all of you have been waiting with bated breath for an update on how the country’s only Prosperity Gospel campaign has been going. That would be the AG race in Connecticut, in which GOP candidate Martha Dean is running on a platform of Freedom, Faith, and Fortune. Actually, I’d pretty much forgotten about […]
First Amendment Originalism
By Mark Silk — October 25, 2010
In response to my Beliefnet commentators.
Juan Williams meets the Religion Expert
By Mark Silk — October 24, 2010
JW: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on airplane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first […]
Dolan Agonistes
By Mark Silk — October 22, 2010
I’m afraid to say that His Merry Rotundity Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, is bidding fair to turn into the ecclesiastical twin of His Grumpy Bullyship William Donohue, president of the Catholic League. They’re both of a size, and though when they show up on your doorstep it’s Tim the Good Cop and Bill […]
Curialism on the March
By Mark Silk — October 21, 2010
The new collection of cardinals named by Pope Benedict yesterday is heavy with officials of the Roman curia. According to Tom Reese (in an emailed piece not yet posted now posted here), the curial component of the College of Cardinals has increased from 24 percent to 28 during Benedict’s papacy, and relatedly, the percentage of […]
