Columns
SSRC’s Religion Blogosphere
By Mark Silk — February 24, 2010
Yr humble proprietor is happy to let you know that this blog has been included among “nearly 100 of the most influential blogs that contribute to an online discussion about religion in the public sphere and the academy” in a new report by the Social Science Research Council. OK, you’re asking, how many non-influential such […]
Meae culpae in Germany
By Mark Silk — February 23, 2010
Top Lutheran apologizes for drunk driving.Top Catholic apologizes for sexual abuse of children at church schools.Top Lutheran faces criminal investigation and possible loss of job. Update: And top Lutheran resigns.
Lying to Gallup, part 2
By Mark Silk — February 23, 2010
Very close readers of this blog will notice a little dispute I’ve been having with SIU sociology professor Darren Sherkat (Go, Salukis!) over how to think about the tendency of Americans to fib about their church attendence. I made the argument that there may be less regional variation than Gallup indicates, because people in states […]
With the pope on your side…or not
By Mark Silk — February 22, 2010
One of the crosses Catholic intellectuals bear is having an occasionally infallible leader with whom you sometimes agree and sometimes, well, not so much. So John Gehring of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good today gladly uses the pope’s recent encyclical embrace of environmental concerns as a club with which to beat anti-environmentalist conservatives. […]
Catholic Charities: the benefits issue
By Mark Silk — February 21, 2010
So the Archdiocese of Washington has gotten out of the foster care/adoption business, for which they’ve been receiving $2 million annually from the public purse. D.C.’s new same-sex marriage law requires all married couples to be treated equally, and because the Catholic church regards same-sex marriage as a crime against nature, it won’t be involved […]
Don’t do that Voodoo
By Mark Silk — February 20, 2010
Sam Freedman, now the sole NYT Saturday religion columnist, has a nice piece today slamming Haiti coverage for lack of attention, except negative, to what is commonly known in Anglophone countries as Voodoo. Pointing out that this is one of Haiti’s official religions, practiced by at least half its citizens, Freedman notes that reporters and […]
Brookings does faith-based
By Mark Silk — February 19, 2010
The Brookings Institution held a 10th anniversary shebang for the federal government’s faith-based initiatives, with the executive director of the Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, Joshua DuBois, as keynoter. Lest anyone in the crowd doubt that this White House is a lot more tuned into church-state separation than its predecessor, DuBois seeded his remarks […]
Lying to Gallup
By Mark Silk — February 18, 2010
There’s nothing new in Gallup’s new survey of church attendance by state, showing weekly attenders to range from 63 percent in Mississippi to 23 percent in Vermont. This is the classic Bible Belt-cum-Bible Suspender, stretching across the South and up the Plains to the Canadian border at the high end and with the Northeast and […]
Winning, sinning on Uganda
By Mark Silk — February 17, 2010
The latest winner among media voices speaking out on Uganda is WaPo conservative columnist Kathleen Parker, who rises to considerable eloquence today in a denunciation of the bill in the Uganda legislature that would, among other things, apply the death penalty to those found to have repeatedly engaged in homosexual acts. “State genocide of a […]
The Hope of the Irish
By Mark Silk — February 17, 2010
In the dark night of the soul of the Catholic Church in Ireland, one light shines in the firmament: Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin. See David Gibson’s fine profile over at Politics Daily.
No More Scandal
By Mark Silk — February 16, 2010
So Benedict has met with the Irish bishops and lectured them on the badness of pedophilia. Here’s how the Vatican press release describes what the pope had to say: For his part, the Holy Father observed that the sexual abuse of children and young people is not only a heinous crime, but also a grave […]
Whadaya mean, wall of separation?
By Mark Silk — February 15, 2010
In his rather pedestrian article in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine on the Texas social studies textbook wars, Russell Shorto seek to give the devil his due: There is, however, one slightly awkward issue for hard-core secularists who would combat what they see as a Christian whitewashing of American history: the Christian activists have a […]
OFANP and Uganda
By Mark Silk — February 12, 2010
Among the reasons to appreciate what’s been going on in the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Advisory Council is the following language from the draft report from the Inter-religious Cooperation Taskforce. Religion is abused by extremists using religion to incite violence and hatred, by unscrupulous leaders manipulating sectarian differences for their own ends, by […]
Catholic tea partying
By Mark Silk — February 12, 2010
Over on In All Things today, Sean Michael Winters dumps on Deal Hudson’s call for a Catholic Tea Party movement to protest such authority (moral and hortatory if less than strictly canonical) that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wields over the faithful. Sean Michael is shocked, shocked that someone as allegedly devoted to […]
OK, it’s a cheap joke
By Mark Silk — February 12, 2010
But Ralph Reed really did tell Brody, “We just couldn’t wait for the Republican Calvary to show up and do it anymore.” Happy Lent.
