Opinion
Obama Romana
By Mark Silk — April 30, 2009
Yesterday Rome spoke on The 100 Days and found that they were…not as bad as feared. According to the front-page story in L’Osservatore Romano, President Obama has operated with laudable caution, including on matters of ethics and morals. Notably, the pope’s paper found reason to praise the administration’s proposed guidelines for funding stem cell research […]
COMMENTARY: Bruce Cockburn, global tourguide
By Cathleen Falsani — April 29, 2009
(UNDATED) Mali. Mozambique. Central America. The Himalayas. Kosovo. I’ve never been to any of these exotic locales, but I feel as if I have because of the more than 30 years of music made by Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn. He is, in a very real way, a citizen of the world. Apart from being one […]
Doctrinaire
By Mark Silk — April 29, 2009
Today’s Gallup poll on The First Hundred Days suggests that Obama has shrunk his religion gap. Whereas 41 percent of weekly worship attenders and 61 percent of seldom or never attenders supported him just before the election, now the numbers are 69 57 percent and 57 69 percent respectively. Thus the gap between the two […]
Friedmania
By Mark Silk — April 29, 2009
Defending the Obama approach to torture, Tom Friedman claims that 1) prosecuting the malefactors (up to and including George W. Bush) would “rip our country apart”; and 2) torturing was justified because only torture was capable of deterring al Qaeda, an enemy like no other we have ever had. The first claim is guesswork, but […]
COMMENTARY: Spreading the Good News, one tweet at a time
By Tom Ehrich — April 28, 2009
(UNDATED) A week ago, I had little firsthand knowledge about Facebook and other “social networking” tools. I had read a lot about Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn. I had opened accounts. I occasionally clicked “Yes” when friends invited me into their networks. But otherwise, I had little direct experience with this burgeoning Web phenomenon, in […]
But who’s counting?
By Mark Silk — April 28, 2009
Arlen Specter’s party switch leaves just one Jewish Republican serving in Congress–House GOP whip Eric Cantor (R-Va).
Mighty Righty
By Mark Silk — April 28, 2009
A decade ago, conservative syndicated columnist Cal Thomas won some liberal props for criticizing the religious right in Blinded by Might, a book he wrote with Grand Rapids megachurch pastor Ed Dobson. Thomas and Dobson were old comrades-in-arms of Jerry Falwell–Thomas VP of the Moral Majority and Dobson associate pastor of Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist […]
Religious dropouts
By Mark Silk — April 27, 2009
In today’s release of the follow-up to its 2007 Landscape Survey, Pew offers an answer to the intriguing question: Which major Christian tradition is most likely to have its members drop out of religion. (Pew calls these folks “unaffiliated,” we at ARIS call them Nones–I won’t argue the point here.) The answer, in the immortal […]
Little Faith-based
By Mark Silk — April 27, 2009
Over at CT Politics, Douglas Koopman is unhappy with the Obama administration’s faith-based initiative so far. A political science prof at Calvin College, Koopman is one of those center-right evangelical types who was disappointed at the politicizing of the Bush effort but nevertheless remains an enthusiast of the approach. His is not the clearest exposition […]
Is the Center the New Left?
By Mark Silk — April 24, 2009
You’ve got to admire the Audacity of Jim. As Ted Olsen over at Christianity Today Politics details in chapter and verse, Wallis of Sojourners has made a career of keeping his distance from the Religious Left–portraying himself, like God, as someone who stands at the radical center. So now to have a minion send around […]
COMMENTARY: Israel attracts endless opinions
By Tracy Gordon — April 23, 2009
(UNDATED)Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, and ever since it has attracted an astonishing number of critics who are obsessed with providing the world’s only Jewish state with an endless stream of unwanted advice, ominous warnings, angry reprimands, or gloomy predictions. Both its friends and enemies have never been shy about telling Israel […]
Nones, NE and NW
By Mark Silk — April 23, 2009
Yesterday, the Connecticut legislature set its good housekeeping seal of approval on the state Supreme Court’s decision allowing same-sex marriage, adjusting state law to bring it into line with the ruling. A probably unnecessary provision, borrowed from Vermont, was written in to give religious organizations–but not individuals–the right to refuse gay couples facilities and services. […]
COMMENTARY: Terror on the high seas
By Phyllis Zagano — April 22, 2009
(UNDATED) I can’t get it out of my head. Some Somali mother’s son thought he could negotiate with the United States of America, and three of his thug-buddies got killed. You remember. The Somali pirates boarded the U.S. merchant ship Maersk Alabama on its way to deliver a shipment of food aid to Kenya. The […]
Hire me this
By Mark Silk — April 22, 2009
Pastordan is a bit befuddled by Michelle Boorstein’s God in Government post reporting that the Advisory Council of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (OFANP) is not, after all, going to take up the thorny faith-based hiring issue. Since I reported a month ago that the Council was going to take it up, let […]
COMMENTARY: Yearning on the everlasting arms
By Tom Ehrich — April 21, 2009
(UNDATED) My father and I were eating lunch at Marquette Manor, the retirement center in Indianapolis where he has lived since my mother’s death five years ago. A friend walked up and put his hand on my father’s shoulder. The two began singing, my father on melody, his friend on harmony. They do this every […]
