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Religion and Public Life With Mark Silk

At the Religion Newswriters Association meeting in Denver last weekend, the local Catholic ordinary, Archbishop Charles Chaput, delivered himself of a classic culture-war critique of the news media’s coverage of religion: Journalism is composed of knowledge-class professionals who make secularist assumptions about American society that shows they are out of touch with real Americans. Coverage…

Responding to my wish to separate out the views on same-sex marriage of under-30 “sectarians” (evangelicals), Sherkat has kindly run the numbers. What they show, as he points out on his blog, is that the gap between this cohort and its non-evangelical peers is actually greater than between sectarians and non-sectarians in older age cohorts.…

I’ve never been a fan of Fidel Castro, but I can’t help feeling a certain tribal glow of appreciation for his warm remarks to the Atlantic‘s Jeffrey Goldberg about the Jews and their state. Goldberg reported them first a couple of weeks ago, and mused on how at odds they are with current global leftism…

While we’re on the subject of the relationship between religion and social views, I’ve just received a pre-publication copy of a paper written by University of Southern Illinois sociology prof. Darren Sherkat and a couple of colleagues analyzing the connections between religion, partisan politics, and views of same-sex marriage. Yes, it”s a gnarly regression-analysis-laden exercise…

Last week’s Pew survey on the influence of religion on Americans’ policy views is notable for revealing how little influence there is. The only areas where religion appears to play a significant leading role in influencing opinion are same-sex marriage, abortion and the death penalty. Sixty percent of pro-lifers and 45 percent of those opposed…

Pace Douthat, but this wasn’t more than a modest success for the pontiff. After all, JPII never ran into opposition rallies, and 20k in London is a lot more than a handful of disgruntled picketers. Of course, had Benedict rowed his coracle across the Irish Sea, it would have been a lot worse.  The business…

The Al Chet, the omnibus confessional prayer said repeatedly by worshipers during Yom Kippur, includes atonement for speaking ill of others and otherwise not controlling one’s tongue. In this regard, it’s good to note some prominent members of my tribe acting on their need to repent. There’s the New Republic‘s Martin Peretz, who made an…

The Family–the secretive Jesus-centric cult that runs the National Prayer Breakfast and solicits the engagement of Washington and world’s high and mighty–is creeping back into the news. The New Yorker‘s Peter J. Boyer has delivered himself of an extended report, while another book on the subject from the redoubtable Jeff Sharlet waits in the wings.…

For some years now, religious progressives (I know one when I see one) have been looking for a way to make themselves felt in society as a proper counterweight to the religious right. They may not have the numbers, but surely there ought to be a way to get the troops cranked up and marching…

The old gag was that journalists are the ones who rush onto the battlefield after the fight is over and shoot the wounded. Nowadays, it’s the rest of the world that rushes in and shoots the journalists. How could they have paid so much attention to an obscure, publicity-hungry pastor like Terry Jones? What ails…
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