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Steven Waldman

In his July 4 speech, George bush edited a Thomas Jefferson letter in a way that truly distorts its meaning. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan) Bush said: In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, “May it be to the world, what I believe it will be — to some parts sooner, to…

When talking about social issues of interest to evangelicals, we tend to lump abortion and homosexuality together. But the politics are actually different, especially among young evangelicals. I asked John Green of the Pew Forum to do one additional slice of the data from their Religious Landscape Survey. Here’s what he reports: 62.3% of white…

The revelation a few weeks ago that 21% of atheists say they believe in God confused those of us who took the term to mean someone who, well, doesn’t believe in God. It seemed a bit like saying 21% of women are men. I probed the Pew Religious Landscape study a bit more and found…

While I usually attempt to be objective, I need to fess up to a raging bias when it comes to “national service,” i.e. government programs to encourage full-time civilian service. I wrote a book about the creation of AmeriCorps and became such a convert to the idea that I left journalism to work at the…

One of the most controversial parts of Obama’s faith-based plan – and Bush’s – was the question of whether faith-based charities could hire or fire people on the basis of religion. I wroter earlier that there’s less here than meets the eye but there are some important principles at stake. First, there are some points…

The most disconcerting part of Obama’s faith initiative is that they didn’t seem to be aware of the volatile politics of one provision: whether faith-based groups can hire and fire according to someone’s religion. “Any religious organization that does not want to comply with that requirement simply doesn’t have to take the money,” said law…

What will the liberals who criticized President Bush’s “theocracy” make of Sen. Barack Obama’s speech yesterday — which argued that the problem with Bush’s faith-based approach is that it didn’t go far enough? In his speech, Obama said Bush’s office of faith-based aid “never fulfilled its promise” because the programs were underfunded and used for…

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama (As prepared for delivery) Tuesday, July 1, 2008 Zanesville, Ohio You know, faith based groups like East Side Community Ministry carry a particular meaning for me. Because in a way, they’re what led me into public service. It was a Catholic group called The Campaign for Human Development that helped…

I havent read the full speech yet but a few things strike me right off the bat about Obama’s big faith-based partnership initiative he’s announcing today. Because his campaign ads have tended to emphasize his efforts for layed off workers, it obscures this basic fact: most of his work was with and through churches. Barack…

The few of us who argued over the years that Democrats would be wise to court evangelicals were usually told that such a strategy was a waste of time and resources. Those pro-life, anti-gay “fundamentalists” would never vote Democratic. Barack Obama has taken a more enlightened view courting evangelicals with a vengeance. Time to get…
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