Opinion
Writ
By Mark Silk — December 15, 2008
Twenty years ago, shortly after we had moved from Milton, Mass. to Decatur, Ga., my eldest son returned from a day at Decatur Presbyterian Kindergarten and asked, “Daddy, What’s the bobble?” “What’s the bobble?” “You know,” he said. “Jesus loves me. This I know. For the bobble tells me so.” “Oh,” I replied, sagely. “It’s […]
Jihadis
By Mark Silk — December 14, 2008
In one of those anniversary pieces that sometimes attribute more significance to what is being remembered than is deserved, Peter Baker suggests in today’s NYT that the impeachment of Bill Clinton 10 years ago marks the beginning of the vendetta-like conflict that characterizes politics in the nation’s capital: Indeed, except for brief interludes, Washington in […]
Sacred Canopy?
By Mark Silk — December 14, 2008
Andrew Sullivan rightly corrects Camille Paglia for claiming that marriage is a religious concept that should be left in the hands of religious institutions while the state should concern itself solely with civil unions and the legal rights appertaining thereunto. (The truth is that marriage was always the business of the civil order; the religious […]
Priests and Prophets
By Mark Silk — December 12, 2008
As Pastordan suggests, there may not be much interest out there in the Religious Industrial Complex discussion, but there are those of us who like it, and nobody’s forcing you to read this. On the question of the efficacy of RIC outreach, let me get a little empirical. Laurie Goodstein of the NYT was kind […]
Independents = Seculars
By Mark Silk — December 12, 2008
There’s been a certain amount of chatter over the past few days about this graph, taken from the General Social Survey, showing that the more strongly identified with a political party you are, the more frequently you are likely to pray. This adds a new item to the existing set of correlations between political participation […]
COMMENTARY: Light amidst the darkness
By Dick Staub — December 12, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) I recently hosted a show featuring Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s poems written from his prison cell during World War II. I was particularly taken by a comment made by Sandy, a busy mom enjoying a rare night out. Reading Bonhoeffer had put her life and circumstances in perspective, she said. Whenever […]
Cizik Gone
By Mark Silk — December 11, 2008
Sarah Pulliam has a first-rate story up on the Christianity Today website breaking news of the resignation of Rich Cizik as vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, in the wake of remarks clearly indicating that he’s grown soft on gay marriage. Here’s what he said to Terry Gross in a […]
The Religious Industrial Complex
By Mark Silk — December 11, 2008
As noted in this space, a few days ago Religion Dispatches ran a piece by Sarah Posner taking a mildly dyspeptic look a what has somewhat nastily (and hyperbolically) been termed the “Religious Industrial Complex” (RIC), by which is meant the small agglomeration of people and institutions that have sprung up over the past several […]
COMMENTARY: A complicated man, a complicated faith
By Cathleen Falsani — December 11, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Forty years ago this week, Trappist monk Thomas Merton passed from this life to the next. Merton, 53, met his end on Dec. 10, 1968, stepping out of a shower and touching a short-circuited electric fan. It was a banal finale to an extraordinary life. I first read Merton […]
Bush’s Religion
By Mark Silk — December 10, 2008
OMG he’s a Mainline Protestant! He worships at an Episcopal Church. He is something of a universalist: When asked if he thinks that he prays to the same God as those with different beliefs [specifically, “Allah”], Bush said, “I do.” “I do believe there is an Almighty that is broad and big enough and loving […]
The New Birth of Newt
By Mark Silk — December 10, 2008
If you’re interested, Christian Century has finally posted my wrap-up of religion and the election. Pastordan uses it as a springboard for a cheery tour of GOP politicians angling for the social conservative vote next time around. This includes an extended look at Newt Gingrich and his attempted makeover as a Man of God. Twenty […]
COMMENTARY: Values feel different this Christmas
By Tom Ehrich — December 10, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Little by little, one reconsidered decision at a time, Americans are reshaping the holiday season. Even though headlines are grim _ plummeting retail sales, 1.2 million jobs lost in the last three months, travel plans abandoned, and an overall atmosphere of caution _ the holiday picture at ground level […]
Social Regionalism
By Mark Silk — December 9, 2008
With all the hoopla over California’s Proposition 8, it went largely unnoticed that on election day Washington joined Oregon in permitting physician-assisted suicide. Now a judge in the nearly adjoining state of Montana has found that Montanans enjoy a state constitutional right to do the same. At the same time, and with the lack of […]
How Big the Tent?
By Mark Silk — December 9, 2008
John Boehner bubbles that Ahn Cao, the new Vietnamese-American congressman from New Orleans, is the future of the Republican Party. Likewise Newt Gingrich: “This is the opposite of red-vs.-blue, base-mobilization politics.” Meanwhile, African-American RNC chair wannabe Michael Steele rages against GOP conservatives who, in shutting him out, would shut out moderates: They have been beating […]
Religious Left (Behind)
By Mark Silk — December 8, 2008
Sarah Posner, who writes the FundamentaList column for the American Prospect, has a useful piece up on Religion Dispatches anatomizing what sometimes passes for the religious left inside the Beltway. Posner’s grumpy point is that the likes of Jim Wallis and Mara Vanderslice and Katie Paris and Burns Strider are not the real left, but […]
