Columns
SBC and GOP
By Mark Silk — June 16, 2009
Once upon a time, the Episcopal Church was known as the Republican Party at prayer. Oh, OK, it was originally the Anglican Church and it was the Tory Party at prayer. But pretty much same diff. The point is that of late the Republican Party at prayer has been the Southern Baptist Convention, and like […]
SSM comes to Washington
By Mark Silk — June 15, 2009
Massachusetts. Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire…and (in a few weeks) D.C. Black clergy notwithstanding. Bets on whether the president or his Attorney General (or his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships) will make a statement?
Obama scrambles Iran
By Mark Silk — June 15, 2009
Now Ayatollah Khamenei says he’s ordering an investigation in election fraud. I’d say, contrary to Rubin, that the “Obama effect” has been to excite hopes for a new day in Iran; stimulate a wave of anti-regime street demonstrations; reveal the iron fist of the Iranian regime for all to see; split the ayatollahs; and force […]
Your Conservative Pundit Watch
By Mark Silk — June 12, 2009
What they will say: If Ahmadinejad wins, it will prove the failure of Obama’s outreach strategy and the irredeemability of Iran. If he loses, it will prove nothing, because in Iran presidents don’t matter, and anyway the guy who was elected isn’t real reformer. Still, it’s better if Ahmadinejad wins. Updatum: Ah, this just in […]
The World According to Grover
By Mark Silk — June 12, 2009
Dan Gilgoff’s Q&A with Grover Norquist is worth reading all the way through, but I’d call particular attention to his somewhat tendentious reading of religious right history–and its implications for the present. Norquist alleges: The religious right did not get started in 1962 with prayer in school. And it didn’t get started in ’73 with […]
Take it Away, Haskell County
By Mark Silk — June 12, 2009
Thank God for the Haskell County (Ok.) commissioners. Five years ago, at the time of the erection of a Ten Commandments monument in front of the county courthouse, one of them declared, That’s what we’re trying to live by, that right there….The good Lord died for me. I can stand for him, and I’m going […]
Roeder, von Brunn, Morgan…ODS
By Mark Silk — June 11, 2009
Scott Roeder (the alleged assassin of George Tiller) and James von Brunner (the apparent murderer of a Holocaust Museum security guard yesterday) are similar characters–older white men who have long nutured antipathy to the federal government, fixated on people who threaten their visions of social purity, be they abortion providers or Jews or blacks. Stephen […]
Standard Insight
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2009
Last week, the Weekly Standard took note of the fact that the Republican party has lately been having a heap of trouble with the least religious segment of the electorate. Naturally, being the Weekly Standard, this fact was not to be attributed to any behavior on the part of the GOP itself, such as its […]
Naming Jesus
By Mark Silk — June 10, 2009
OMG: Barack Obama invokes the name of Jesus in public more than George W. Bush did! That must mean…what? Politico’s Eamon Javers offers a range of non-mutually exclusive explanations, including Obama’s need to demonstrate that he is a Christian, his desire to appeal to religious conservatives, an interest in reanimating a Christian Left. It’s worth […]
Newt v. Grover
By Mark Silk — June 9, 2009
Once upon a time, when the Contract with America beguiled a people tired of a Democratic-run Congress, Newt Gingrich and Grover were allies, bomb-throwing peas in a pod ready to achieve congressional power by any means necessary. They made common cause with religious conservatives because they needed ’em in their low-tax, small- government coalition. Norquist […]
The Faith-Based Office
By Mark Silk — June 8, 2009
Say what you like about, George W. Bush’s Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives had a real public policy commitment; to wit: “Our Vision is to educate and assist new and existing Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to apply and qualify for competitive Federal Funding.” Before his administration was run over by the events of 9/11, […]
Oy
By Mark Silk — June 8, 2009
Former Liberian dictator Charles Taylor now considers himself a Jew. At least he also still considers himself a Christian.
The Word from Indy
By Mark Silk — June 8, 2009
The 1st Biennial Religion and American Culture Conference went off nicely in Indianapolis, marking as it did the 20th anniversary of IUPUI’s Center for the study of the same. A formal proclamation, complete with numerous whereases and signed by the governor and the mayor declared a statewide Day in celebration, and there was as much […]
Civil NY Bishops
By Mark Silk — June 6, 2009
Three years ago, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, then archbishop of Washington, gave Wolf Blitzer to understand that he was OK with same-sex civil unions (though he quickly issued a “clarification” making it clear that he did not actually support them). Are the Dolan-led New York bishops, in their notably mild statement against New York’s SSM bill, […]
Churchgoers for Gays
By Mark Silk — June 5, 2009
Sixty percent of weekly churchgoers favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. And 58 percent of conservatives. And 57 percent of Southerners. Bets on when the deal is done? I predict by Thanksgiving.
