Religion And Politics

Who would have thought that at this point in the presidential campaign season it would be the Democrats who are embroiled in an intra-mural battle over the influence of a perceived religious extremist?

Remember, after all, it was the Republicans who played to form in their early May 3,...

The media is once again in a feeding frenzy. Its latest victim is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former senior pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, of which presidential contender Barack Obama is a member.

If you buy into what the media is reporting, much of it culled...

I do not presume to judge anyone else's method of worship. I do know bad timing when I see it and Reverend Jeremiah Wright's pre-primary media blitz seems designed, unintentionally or not, to benefit John McCain, while distracting from the real issues of the campaign (four-dollar gasoline, war, recession, health...

At a news conference in Florida this week, John McCain couldn't resist the opportunity to bring up remarks by Jeremiah Wright, calling them "beyond belief." This, despite the fact that Bill Moyers, in an hour long interview last Friday showed the world the broader context in which the remarks...

In a just-unearthed 1995 interview, Barack Obama describes America as "a land of strangers" where, despite all the rhetoric about the "browning of America," the melting pot remains a far-off dream for most -- with different communities as foreign to one another as distant countries. He discusses how white executives...

With the Bill Moyers interview, Jeremiah Wright is back in the news. And with the exit polling showing that Barack Obama's race was a factor for one out of six voters in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, there is no doubt that Obama's association with Wright is a significant political liability....

Hilary Clinton says Senator Obama is "out of touch" and "elitist" about religion. So does Senator McCain. They make a great team.

When someone is accused of something, how he defends himself can be dismissed as newfound conviction born of necessity. The only way to know who...

Talking about the Catholic Church without talking about the place of women is like talking about the history of South Africa while ignoring apartheid. It completely denies the realities of the Catholic Church today, which include:

* The exclusion of women from the ranks of cardinals, bishops, priests...

As the controversy over Barack's "bitter" comments continues (at least in the minds of the pundits who get answers to whether it's an issue or not by asking themselves), I watched tonight's Compassion Forum on CNN to see how Barack would handle the subject before a faith-oriented audience. Given...

This Sunday, Senators Clinton and Obama will be taking part in something called the 'Compassion Forum' at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. Ironically, Messiah College has a severe lack of compassion towards its LGBT students. The school's community covenant prohibits "homosexual behavior" and effectively bans LGBT students who are open and...

There is nothing so dangerous for a child as an insular, patriarchical religious organization, and the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, whose compound in El Dorado, Texas, is now under control of the Texas authorities, is one of the scariest examples. It took the extraordinary bravery of a 16-year-old girl to...

A story involving a Canadian Muslim reporter in Indonesia, who was told by the religious police to "show some respect!" and cover her hair, has prompted me to have a few thoughts about Islam and American responsibility.

After a recent trip to Indonesia, Natasha Fatah, who works for the CBC,...

Shortly before 2 p.m. Eastern today, Andrea Mitchell interviewed Joshua Green of The Atlantic regarding Hillary Clinton's participation in The Fellowship (a/k/a The Family). You can read my opinion of Hillary's participation in this organization (including links to background articles in Harpers in early 2003 and Mother Jones in late...

Imagine a presidential candidate who believed that God wanted him to run for president because American needed him. Picture a secretive group of Washington insiders who meet quietly to mix religion, class and politics and who believe in an elite group of people divinely ordained to run the country and...

"You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend." said Hillary Clinton, to reporters and editors of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on Tuesday the 25th.

This is an interesting choice of words, since -- while we mostly hear about her Methodist upbringing -- Hillary...

Barack Obama delivered a truly brilliant and inspiring speech this week. There were a few things, however, that he did not and could not (and, indeed, should not) say:

He did not say that the mess he is in has as much to do with religion as with...