Religion Dispatches
…has been the place where GOP presidents are made by the religious right. In 1979, as Huckabee recounts in his book, his then-boss James Robison organized a meeting of the emerging leaders of the religious right at a Dallas “Freedom Rally,” where, according to Huckabee, Robison realized the political power of conservative Christians and “would later be a part of a small circle of conservative evangelical leaders who would meet with Ronald Reagan an…
Read More…eems a Kansas City cop would be able to do so in the course of a writing a ticket. According to the Brennan Center study, 40% of the terror plots that have been thwarted by law enforcement have been discovered, at least in part, thanks to tips from Muslims. Yet surveillance, infiltration, and even what community members consider entrapment has left them feeling targeted as criminals and suspicious of law enforcement. This seriously inhibits trust…
Read More…nt of independence from doctrine and denominational tradition. JCC, like a number of evangelical churches, works on a small-groups model, which it describes as a four-step graduation from community evangelism, to “consolidation” of new members through inclusion in small-cell “Life Groups” — men’s and women’s fellowship and accountability meetings that generally serve to bring new members into the community and in line with its standards, and move…
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…mocrats, 1 No, dammit, Bob Casey, Sr. was not denied a speaking slot at the 1992 convention because he was pro-life. It was because refused to endorse the Clinton-Gore ticket. There have been many pro-life speakers at Democratic conventions in the intervening years, including last night Robert P. Casey, Jr., himself no slouch in the pro-life department. Good Catholics Can’t Be Democrats, 2 Or so says Bishop Tobin of Providence about Tim Kaine. I d…
Read More…nt with a values-neutral approach to work, livelihood, and the marketplace? Why does religion play an outsized role in the politics of gay marriage and contraception but apparently has no say when it comes to big-ticket items like national spending and economic policy? That profound disconnect certainly did not originate with Romney, but it may in fact be the key to understanding how he would lead and govern….
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…on sells and, when consumed, produces fertile opportunities for insight. A ticket to the “Everything Must Change” tour is, somewhat oddly perhaps, a plunge into a pool of progressive partners. Multiethnic churches and urban ministries will play tour hosts. Sojourners magazine is an event co-sponsor—no small potatoes considering the mainstream cachet of Jim Wallis, the founder /editor of Sojourners and author of the chart burner, God’s Politics. An…
Read More…ns last week bearing a link to his own video endorsement of a proposed GOP ticket, less than a month from the Iowa Republican Presidential Caucuses on Jan. 3. That endorsement? A merger of Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann. Pastor Gordon, who previously supported former Ten Commandments judge Roy Moore before his presidential campaign fizzled, adds, “many Iowa conservatives don’t care who’s on top.” Update: Via Brian Tashman, some more backgrou…
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…nowadays something closer to the radical right-wing revolutionaries of the 1990s Patriot movement than anything you might actually describe as conservative in the traditional sense. I do think that a number of conservatives are starting to wake up to this reality now. David Brooks and Joe Scarborough and Lindsey Graham have just recently fired salvos across the decks of the right-wing talkers, criticizing them for where they’re dragging the Repub…
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…ram, Titus ran on Constitution Party founder Howard Phillips’ presidential ticket in 1996. The stated goal of the Constitution Party “is to restore American jurisprudence to its biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its Constitutional boundaries.” That includes, for example, “affirm[ing] the rights of states and localities to proscribe offensive sexual behavior” (i.e., homosexuality) and “oppos[ing] all efforts to impose a ne…
Read More…aithful to encourage them to “vote Catholic”—i.e. vote for the Romney/Ryan ticket. Leading the charge is Bishop Daniel Jenky, of Peoria, Illinois, who is calling for all priests “by virtue of their vow of obedience to me as your Bishop” to read his letter on the election at each mass they celebrate this weekend. The letter, addressed to Catholic believers, is an appeal to the “threat to religious liberty” because of the HHS mandate. Since Bishop J…
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