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By the Way: Fractured Religious Right Endorses McCain

By Randall Balmer

…of discussion, and to no one’s surprise, the group decided to shelve their reservations about John McCain and endorse him in the fall campaign. “The alternative is so bad,” Phyllis Schlafly declared, “we must support John McCain.” The meeting was called by Mathew Staver, dean of the law school at Liberty University. Those in attendance included Phil Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values in Ohio, Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther Ki…

It’s Official: White Evangelical Support for Romney Not Dampened by Mormon Factor

By Joanna Brooks

…als said they “strongly favored” Romney, and about 30% said they had “some reservations”—proportions just about equivalent to those reported for Romney voters overall. In the voting booth, partisanship trumped sectarianism. As we knew it would. But according to the Pew enthusiasm for Romney overall lagged behind the enthusiasm of Obama voters, seventy percent of whom said they “strongly favored” the president. Perhaps Romney’s team is to be credit…

A Reforming Tradition Struggles With Change

By Brent Hege

…easingly irrelevant. Surveys consistently show that younger generations of Americans are becoming more accepting of LGBTQ persons, and none other than former first lady Laura Bush admitted recently that same-sex marriage “will come.” It is also important to remember that the ELCA is not a denomination on the far-left fringes of American Protestantism; it is a traditionally moderate, left-of-center body whose historic heartlands are the Mid-Atlanti…

Profits Over Principles for Romney?

By Joanna Brooks

…belongs to a Church that strictly prohibits tobacco use, apparently had no reservations about promoting tobacco in countries which had no or few regulations on the promotion or use of tobacco products. In fact, the documents show that this was the clear objective of American tobacco companies who were facing declining sales at home due to increased government regulations and scrutiny. Romney has spoken of his personal disdain for tobacco, revealin…

Thoroughly Modern Mormons

By Joanna Brooks

…entury church completing an aggressive transition from regionally-specific American theocracy to a global institution. It’s a transition that has costs, very human ones, as Mormons concerned with the status of LGBT members, or women, or with growing rates of disaffiliation among young people will tell you. Recent surveys of Church members have linked rising rates of youth disaffiliation to increased internet access and information about thorny his…

Evangelicals Struggle With the Role of Churches in Society

By Omri Elisha

…rns for the welfare of society, many conservative evangelicals harbor deep reservations about supporting any programs that seem to deprioritize evangelism or run the risk of becoming too liberal or too secular. Socially engaged evangelicals counteract those concerns by insisting that faith-based activism can ideally be a vehicle for greater evangelism, not a distraction from it. But they often face strong ideological resistance and logistical cons…

What if Israel Were in Germany? An Alternate History

By Haroon Moghul

…book whose lead characters are almost all Arabs and Muslims. Do you think American readers can go for that? Do you think it will be easy to make the readers identify with peoples who are usually ignored, misunderstood, or often even disliked? I’m pretty optimistic. I think the premise is intriguing enough to overcome whatever initial reservations some readers might have, and once they get into the story I think they’ll find the characters easy en…

Romney Stands Up to Bryan Fischer at Values Voters Summit

By Joanna Brooks

…ical conservatives. Will the Republican Party allow a particular strand of American religious antagonism to choose its presidential candidates, even when the evangelical right fails to deliver candidates the rest of the nation finds credible or electable? Could Mitt Romney’s modest but principled stand signal a turning point for the acceptability of openly anti-Mormon sentiment within the GOP? I’ve seen a few other signs this week that suggest i…

What The Church Needs More Than a ‘Good Pope’

By Mary E. Hunt

…This is welcome. He is correct that based on his history many of his Latin American colleagues fear that he will not make doctrinal changes. Authoritarianism is not simply how one treats people, but also how one treats ideas. Second, the compassion, humanity, and simple lifestyle that Pope Francis manifests is refreshing after decades of John Paul II and Benedict XVI’s personalities and actions. At the same time, Francis demonstrates in the inter…

Presbyterians, Change Hearts & Minds, Begin Ordaining Gays

By MaryAnn McKibben Dana

…ness in and for a denomination that has lost its way.” Regardless of those reservations, 10A is now the law of Presbyterian land. What lessons can be drawn from this success? Learning from Failure Amendment 10A is the culmination of years of tweaking and learning from past failures. After a 1997 attempt to replace “fidelity” and “chastity” with language about living with “integrity,” advocates spent a few years pursuing a strategy of deleting t…