Columns
Mormons are conservative, Republican?
By Mark Silk — January 12, 2010
Gallup’s latest political release is not exactly stop-the-presses material. Aggregating 2009 surveys, it has determined that Mormons are a lot more conservative and Republican than any other religious grouping in America. Specifically, 59 percent consider themselves conservative and 65 percent Republican. The next most conservative/Republican cohort are the Protestants/Other Christians (i.e. non-Catholic Christians), who weigh […]
Palin on Fox
By Mark Silk — January 11, 2010
So what will Roger have her do? She doesn’t seem knowledgeable enough or quick enough on her feet or to do anything other than read prepared scripts. I’ve got it! They’ll have her give the Invocation every morning. And Brit Hume can give the Benediction every evening. New Fox motto: “We Pray. You Obey.”
USCCB v. Health Care Reform
By Mark Silk — January 11, 2010
Anyone who imagines that the Catholic bishops will end up supporting health care reform should go over to On Faith and take a look at this post by their spokeswoman, Sr. Mary Ann Walsh. Insisting that her bosses have supported reform “for decades,” Walsh goes on to complain that the present state of affairs is […]
America and the Muhammad cartoons
By Mark Silk — January 8, 2010
Winnie Sullivan, the enfante terrible of religion and legal theory, is at it again with a review of a new collection of essays on the Muhammad cartoons controversy over at Religion Dispatches. Applauding some of the authors at the expense of others, she takes up familiar cudgels against the Western understanding of its secular order […]
Nones not mobilized?
By Mark Silk — January 8, 2010
Over at Immanent Frame, Clemson political scientist Laura Olson seizes on Bill Maher’s question why the religiously unaffiliated are not mobilized and comes up with the rather obvious conclusion that it’s hard to mobilize a diverse group of people who are, well, unaffiliated. As opposed to mobilizing church folk, with respect to whom (as the […]
Prayin’ on the BCS Championship
By Mark Silk — January 7, 2010
The ‘Horns may feel a higher power, but if a ‘Bamian don’t think every word of the Bible is true, he ain’t telling the Mobile Press-Register. Welcome to Belief Bowl 2010. Hook ’em, Tide!
Editorial Noes to Uganda bill
By Mark Silk — January 7, 2010
WaPo’s editorial today on Uganda’s proposed anti-homosexuality bill is (as usual) better written and harder hitting than the Times‘ of three days ago, but in not recommending government sanctions weaker (as usual) in the remediation department.
Judeo-Christian positions on abortion
By Mark Silk — January 7, 2010
Over at FindLaw, Cornell law professor Sherry Colb has a column inspired by a recent call by Israel’s two chief rabbis for their colleagues to preach against abortion. Her aim is to make clear how different Jewish law on abortion is from Catholic (and evangelical Protestant) doctrine, even as both differ from secular U.S. and […]
Glendon on Cicero
By Mark Silk — January 6, 2010
Mary Ann Glendon’s fulsome appreciation of Cicero in the current issue of First Things is one lawyer/public figure’s tribute to her most distinguished predecessor, but given Glendon’s own involvement with issues of religion in public life–and the main preoccupation of the magazine she’s writing for–it’s curious that she didn’t manage, in nearly 4,000 words, to […]
Mary Daly, RIP
By Mark Silk — January 5, 2010
Twenty-five years ago, I almost interviewed Mary Daly for a profile in the Boston Globe. She agreed to talk to me, then changed her mind. So I wrote a review of her then-latest book, Pure Lust (excerpt after the jump). She was the great feminist theologian, thanks to The Church and the Second Sex, an […]
A kind word for Joel Osteen
By Mark Silk — January 5, 2010
Because of its comprehensive coverage of the Uganda anti-homosexuality bill, I’ve become a big fan of Box Turtle Bulletin, the 4-person webzine that tracks homosexuality in public life in a civil and balanced (if not exactly non-partisan) way. But even by BTB’s standards, yesterday’s commentary on Joel Osteen by Timothy Kincaid is notable. Equipped with […]
Tiger’s Path to Redemption
By Mark Silk — January 4, 2010
What to say about Brit Hume’s advice to Tiger Woods, vouchsafed on Fox News Sunday? “The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith,” Hume said. “He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the […]
Rick Warren…he’s baaaack
By Mark Silk — January 3, 2010
After his star turn at the Inaugural a year ago, the Lord of Saddleback withdrew from the public stage in an act of benignant tzimtzum, permitting lesser lights of the religious firmament to do their shining and the creation of the Age of Obama to begin. But in recent weeks He has returned, setting off […]
Ave atque vale, Peter
By Mark Silk — January 2, 2010
Peter Steinfels bids farewell to his NYT Beliefs column today, 20 years and out. He expresses some regret at feeling bound by Times style to maintain an Olympian distance and dispassion even as other Timesfolk began promiscuously inserting first-person-singular pronouns and attitudes into their copy. I’m not sure what it would have been like for […]
Christianity and the Crash
By Mark Silk — January 1, 2010
As an old newspaperman, I tend to bristle at the conventional charge that this or that sensationalist story was put out there “to sell papers.” Since World War II, virtually all American newspapers have been sold by subscription and delivered to homes. No single story can bump circulation, except perhaps in New York City, where […]