When it comes to President Obama's stimulus package and its provisions to help those Americans who are having great difficulty paying their home mortgages, I have come to realize that I'm like the older brother in the story of the Prodigal Son.

As you probably recall, Jesus tells about a...

From the beginning, there have been some religious leaders who greeted the funding of faith-based social services by government with ambivalence. On the one hand, they believed that these religiously grounded programs needed extra funding and were pleased that the White House wanted to help. On the other hand, they...

Last year, America spent $700 billion on oil imported from the Middle East. That figure is familiar because that is almost the exact amount of money that the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Paulson, requested from Congress to buy up securities and bank notes from our leading financial institutions which...

There are all kinds of ironies in this election, especially concerning Sarah Palin's nomination as the vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party.

On the one hand, those ardent feminists on the political left who have strongly denounced any suggestion that women should be a full-time mothers at the...

In the past, the Republican Party has depended on unified support at election time from Evangelical Christians. But times are changing! There is evidence of a significant division emerging in the Evangelical ranks as the 2008 election approaches. Young Evangelicals, especially, are breaking ranks with older Evangelicals (over 40) and...

Religion, for better or for worse, has been politicized in blatant ways that have seldom been equaled in American elections. Evangelical Christians, who once were a ridiculed irrelevant sectarian movement, have, over just three decades, become a powerful voting bloc that can no longer be ignored. It is a tribute...

It is increasingly obvious that the unified front that the Religious Right once presented to the world is fractured and has fallen into a variety of pieces. Chuck Colson, one of the most intelligent and effective spokespersons for that powerful bloc of Evangelical voters that so faithfully delivered elections into...

Those on the political left have been appalled as the Christian Coalition passed out, in Evangelical churches, millions of voter guides that lent obvious endorsements to candidates of the Republican Party. During this last election, there was further outrage among liberal Democrats when members of the Evangelical clergy organized to...

Sigmund Freud was the apostle of disbelief. He was the one who made psychoanalysis a part of our culture, and in so doing he kicked out a flying buttress that had been essential for holding up our cathedral of faith. There is no doubt that religion had already waned under...

The Religious Right is being challenged by a new Evangelical movement that is called The Red Letter Christians. Unlike the Religious Right, we are not allied with any political party, because we believe that Jesus is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. Instead, we are going to ask the questions...

For years the Religious Right has largely succeeded in convincing pro-life evangelicals to pledge allegiance to the Republican Party. Put us in charge, these allies said, and we will end the scandal of abortion. Partly because of this strategy, we have had for the past six years a Republican President,...

According to a study by the Pew Foundation, 87% of Evangelicals voted for President Bush in 2004. His support among our people has remained solid, even as the rest of the nation has become increasingly disappointed with his administration. I can understand why that support has remained steady considering his...

A few weeks ago I was a guest on Steven Colbert's popular television show, The Colbert Report. He introduced me as an Evangelical who is liberal on social issues. Then he added, "He's a living oxymoron!"

Sadly, his words reflect the way Evangelicals are regularly perceived. Here in the United...

Recently, I sat in dismay as I watched a television show that featured a prominent Christian author defending the use of torture in the war against terrorism. I was outraged that this man could try to make a case for followers of Jesus condoning such an immoral practice. I shared...

Bill Bennett has been a darling of Evangelicals since the publication of his Book of Virtues. It made him a hero because he espoused old-fashioned values that Evangelicals tout loud and clear. But has this hero-worship of Bennett curtailed their ability to criticize him when he makes outlandish statements?

Recently,...

Recently I was a guest on Chris Matthew’s television show, Hardball. The topic for discussion on the show was whether or not the church should be involved in politics. It was expected to be a hot discussion, since the day before the Supreme Court had ruled that the display of...