Gay marriage and gay parents aren't a threat to children but a certain frighteningly widespread kind of Christianity is not just a threat but a death sentence. With the growth of the so-called charismatic faith healing denominations in America it's time to put child welfare ahead of our concept of...

Here's how Obama's critics will react to the news of his winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Religious Right will take this is further proof that Obama is the Antichrist.

The neoconservatives will trumpet this as the ultimate evidence of Obama being a socialist, embraced by notoriously socialist Norway.

The...

Since President Obama took office I've felt like the lonely -- maybe crazy -- proverbial canary in the coal mine. As a former right wing leader, who many years ago came to my senses and began to try to undo the harm the movement of religious extremism I helped build...

On what had to be one of the most disheartening media appearances I've ever made -- in terms of my usual shtick as an author and commentator -- I was just on Court TV yesterday. Court TV was fine. The case we were talking about made me want to throw...

In a dream world where the shouting stopped, where of course Americans argued with each other, but where we all assumed that we were all in this together, that we all wanted a better America, that it was about building community and treating each other with decency and respect, what...

Who are these people?! Where do they come from?! Ordinary Americans might wonder why anyone would stoop so low as to follow Glenn Beck, Fox News and Dick Armey (and their corporate sponsors masquerading as "FreedomWorks") as they organize their "9/12 March On Washington" to cynically exploit the 9/11 attack....

For me reading Max Blumenthal's Republican Gomorrah--Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party, (Nation Books) is like looking into a mirror. That might be because Blumenthal extensively interviewed me and drew rather heavily on my book Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped...

The truth is that if (post-9/11) America wanted to fight two wars simultaneously -- and apparently endlessly -- protect our shores and project power into other parts of the globe simultaneously we needed draft. But we are a culture that refuses to make hard choices and likes happy endings, in...

To the right, President Obama faces a Republican Party that is now more of a fundamentalist cult, wedded irrevocably to myth and deliberate misinformation, than a political party. (I did my part to make it that way by being a religious right anti-abortion leader and side-kick to my far-right evangelist...

What's the common denominator linking crummy public transport, military contractors and the public option being taken off the table in the health care reform fight? Why is a single-payer health care provider "unthinkable"? The common denominator is that the United States is in the thralls of a demented cult that...

Can the left learn to keep its mouth shut once in a while? Does the American left know how to win wars or just skirmishes? Does the left want change or does it demand perfection? You can't have both in this life.

No one has been a tougher critic...

You evangelical leaders have a choice before you: rejoin American society as it is and love the actual country you're part of, or stick to your mythical Disney remake of a Little House On the Prairie fantasy and fade away -- forever.

To you "moderate" and "respectable" evangelical Christians...

From the media influence of the "birthers" to suggestions that the President wants to euthanize the elderly, a propaganda campaign against Obama is in full swing. Who, exactly, is behind it? In his book The Family, Jeff Sharlet has done a masterful job of exposing the machinations of the of...

It's funny, I just read Krugman in today's NY Times. Krugman has it wrong where he says, at the end of his piece, that "Mr. Obama's backers seem to lack all conviction." Krugman's in a "beltway" mindset of his own and not really in touch with us Obama backers. (Of...

Oprah consciousness has invaded the White House. Is there a limit to the touchy -feely public reconciliation syndrome? Apparently not. Oprah rules! I have nothing against Oprah. Her providing a forum for public confessions and reconciliations makes for great TV. And she helped turn one of my books (Keeping Faith-A...

Here's what I care about: that the 72 percent of us Americans who want a public option on health care -- so that we can stick it to the insurance companies, who have been sticking it to us -- be heard so we see prices fall. Here's what I don't...

All through the election I told my pro-life friends to trust (then Senator) Obama when he said he wanted to reduce the number of abortions while keeping abortion legal. I'd been-there-done-that on realizing that the Republicans and pro-life camp have wasted close to forty years raising money and getting votes...

Does morality come from religion or is it merely "the language games of one's time"? Are the most basic moral boundaries we evolved that make life easier and less chaotic a reflection of the character of God? If there is no God, or if He doesn't care about us, then...

Dear Attorney General Holder:

I am writing to thank you for ordering the Department of Justice to investigate other potential federal crimes in connection with the murder of Dr. George Tiller. As someone who in the early days of the so-called pro-life movement was partly responsible for...

The just published Believer Beware (Jeff Sharlet and Peter Manseau, Editors, Beacon Press) is the most amusing and touching collection of stories about religion, faith and loss of faith I've sucked up in years. (The perfect summer read too.) Recovering religion survivors (of all traditions) will embrace it in the...