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Posted 11/12/2007

Senate member seeks financial records of Atlanta megachurches
By Christopher Quinn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
November 6, 2007
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent letters requesting detailed financial documents to two metro Atlanta preachers and four other ministries nationwide whose leaders are known for opulent, or as the ministers would say, blessed, lifestyles.
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The theology of American empire
By Ira Chernus
Foreign Policy in Focus
November 7, 2007 (posted by AlterNet)
American foreign policy is built on a deep foundation of Christian theology. When it comes to foreign policy, we are all influenced by theological foundations that we rarely see.
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Posted 8/14/2007

Religion, culture behind Texas execution tally
By Ed Stoddard
Reuters
August 12, 2007
Texas will almost certainly hit the grim total of 400 executions this month, far ahead of any other state, testament to the influence of the state's conservative evangelical Christians and its cultural mix of Old South and Wild West.
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Posted 7/24/2007

US Senate opens with Hindu prayer
By Aziz Haniffa
Rediff India Abroad
July 12, 2007
History was created in the United States Senate at 9.30 am on Thursday, when Rajan Zed, the Hindu chaplain of the Indian Association of Northern Nevada, opened the Senate with a Hindu prayer. A few Christian fundamentalists protested and began screaming, while holding the Bible aloft, "Lord Jesus, protect us from this abomination."
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A tragic legacy: How a good vs. evil mentality destroyed the Bush presidency
Opinion by Glenn Greenwald
Salon
June 20, 2007
One of the principal dangers of vesting power in a leader who is convinced of his own righteousness – who believes that, by virtue of his ascension to political power, he has been called to a crusade against Evil – is that the moral imperative driving the mission will justify any and all means used to achieve it.
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Posted 6/14/2007

Texas parents challenge unconstitutional
Bible class in public schools
American Civil Liberties Union
Press Release
May 16, 2007
The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, People For the American Way Foundation, and the law firm of Jenner & Block, LLP filed a federal lawsuit today in the Western District of Texas on behalf of eight parents who say that the Bible course offered in their local high schools violates their religious liberty by promoting particular religious beliefs to children in their community.
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Religious groups reap federal aid for pet projects
By Diana B. Henriques and Andrew W. Lehren
New York Times
May 13, 2007
Religious organizations have long competed for federal contracts to provide social services, and they have tried to influence Congress on matters of moral and social policy - indeed, most major denominations have a presence in Washington to monitor such legislation. But an analysis of federal records shows that some religious organizations are also hiring professional lobbyists to pursue the narrowly tailored individual appropriations known as earmarks.
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Posted 1/10/2007

Congressman criticizes election of Muslim
By Rachel L. Swarns
New York Times
December 21, 2006
In a letter sent to hundreds of voters this month, Representative Virgil H. Goode Jr., Republican of Virginia, warned that the recent election of the first Muslim to Congress posed a serious threat to the nation's traditional values. Mr. Goode was referring to Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat and criminal defense lawyer who converted to Islam as a college student and was elected to the House in November.
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Rep. Goode’s intolerance toward Muslim Congressman is misdirected
Opinion by John Baker Brown Jr.
Faith And The City e.Newsletter
January 5, 2007
Rep. Virgil Goode, the uninformed Republican Congressman from Virginia, sees a “threat to the nation’s traditional values” in the election to Congress of Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat and Muslim American. As a member of Congress, Mr. Goode could better serve our nation by concerning himself with the moral turpitude of a disturbing number of his congressional colleagues of both parties, whose ethical lapses pose the real threat to America’s traditional values.
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A call for inter-faith reconciliation in Congress Invitation to sign petition
Faithful America
January 4, 2007
As religious people from diverse traditions, we call upon Virginia Congressman Virgil Goode to re-examine his opposition to newly-elected Representative Keith Ellison, a Muslim, taking his unofficial oath of office using the Qur'an, and to apologize for his statement that, without punitive immigration reform, "there will be many more Muslims elected to office demanding the use of the Quran."
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Message from a megachurch
Opinion by E. J. Dionne Jr.
Washington Post
December 5, 2006
Pastor Rick Warren is no political liberal. But Warren speaks for a new generation of evangelicals who think that harnessing religious faith too closely to electoral politics is bad for religion, and who are broadening the evangelical public agenda to include a concern for global poverty and the scourge of AIDS.
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Religion for a captive audience, paid for by taxes
By Diana B. Henriques and Andrew Lehren
New York Times
December 10, 2006
Since 2000, courts have cited more than a dozen programs for having unconstitutionally used taxpayer money to pay for religious activities or evangelism aimed at prisoners, recovering addicts, job seekers, teenagers and children. Nevertheless, the programs are proliferating.
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Posted 12/06/2006

Lt. Gov.-elect Cagle appears on Faith And The City cable TV program
Faith And The City e.Newsletter
December 5, 2006
“The Emerging Religious Middle: Opportunities for Bipartisanship” is the panel discussion topic for December on the Faith And The City Forum weekly public affairs program. Joining host Steen Miles are Georgia’s Lt. Governor-elect Casey Cagle, State Senator Sam Zamarripa, and Spelman College Professor Rosetta E. Ross, Ph.D.
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Justice: Still Not an Option for American Muslims
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig
AlterNet
December 6, 2006
Dr. Sami Al-Arian, who has spent over two years in isolation and was a tenured professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida until being fired, was given the maximum sentence earlier this year for what the judge, in a case that bordered on the farcical, said was his support of a radical Palestinian organization.
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Religious groups react to the 2006 election: Most want the two parties to work together
by Greg Smith, Scott Keeter, and John Green
Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
November 27, 2006
The religious divide in voting that has characterized American politics over the last several elections largely persisted in the 2006 election.
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First Muslim congressman elected
BBC News
November 8, 2006
Keith Ellison, a Democrat, has become the first Muslim to be elected to the US Congress by winning a Minnesota seat in the House of Representatives.
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Posted 11/16/2006

Evangelicals misunderstood
Opinion by Joseph Loconte and Michael Cromartie
The Plain Dealer
November 11, 2006
Evangelicals led the grass- roots campaigns for passage of the abolition of slavery and for women's suffrage. The Moral Majority in its most belligerent form amounted to nothing more terrifying than churchgoers flocking peacefully to the polls on Election Day. The only people who want a biblical theocracy in America are completely outside the evangelical mainstream, their influence negligible.
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Posted 10/25/2006

North Korea / South Korea program to repeat on FATC cable TV program
Faith And The City
October 23, 2006
Given continuing developments on the Korean Peninsula and the international tensions associated with North Korea's recently demonstrated nuclear weapons capability, Faith And The City Forum will re-broadcast "North Korea, South Korea, and the Global Community," hosted by Steen Miles and originally aired summer 2003.
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In God’s name:
As exemptions grow, religion outweighs regulation
By Diana B. Henriques
New York Times
October 8, 2006
Correction Appended
In recent years, many politicians and commentators have cited what they consider a nationwide "war on religion" that exposes religious organizations to hostility and discrimination. But such organizations - from mainline Presbyterian and Methodist churches to mosques to synagogues to Hindu temples - enjoy an abundance of exemptions from regulations and taxes. And the number is multiplying rapidly.
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Few black churches get funds:
Small percentage participate in Bush's faith-based initiative
By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post
September 19, 2006
The Bush administration's faith-based initiative is reaching only a tiny percentage of the nation's black churches, most of which have limited capacity to run social programs, hampering the initiative's promise of empowering those congregations to help the needy, according to a study to be released today.
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Does a political candidate's religion matter?
Opinion by Doug Gatlin
Faith And The City
October 20, 2006
If that means the name of the candidate's religion, no, it doesn't matter. If it means, whether they have, or practice, a religion, then it begins to matter. What really matters is whether the basic tenets of their faith guide them in their life rather than just being regulations they sometimes hear about on the holy days.
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Posted 3/13/2006

Facts, values and the constitution
Public Agenda Alert
March 2, 2006
More Americans can name the characters in The Simpsons or the judges on American Idol than can name the five rights covered by the First Amendment, according to a survey released this week by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum.
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Public officials under God
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Washington Post
Feb. 28, 2006
When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he said some things about Catholic bishops that might, in today's climate, be condemned as insolence toward church authority.
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Posted 2/13/2006

Wayward Christian soldiers
Opinion by Charles Marsh
New York Times
Jan. 20, 2006
In the past several years, American evangelicals, and I am one of them, have amassed greater political power than at any time in our history. But at what cost to our witness and the integrity of our message?
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Posted 12/20/2005

Church and State: Friends and Foes in the Public Square
By Robert M. Franklin
The state should neither seek to privilege evangelical Christianity nor to punish it. The state should be indifferent to the religious substance of its many faith traditions.
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Posted 8/18/2005

When the Right Breaks the Barrier, How Should a Spiritual Left Respond?
Opinion by Michael Lerner
Tikkun
July/August 2005
The task of the Tikkun Community and our Network of Spiritual Progressives is to acknowledge what is legitimate in the Religious Right's concern about the undermining of spiritual consciousness, but then to show that the solution is not to impose religion or spirituality through the mechanisms of the state, but rather to challenge the capitalist ethos in every aspect of life (and in the process to defend secularists from being unfairly targeted by the Religious Right).
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Posted 7/18/2005

Study: Religious Fundamentalists and Brand Loyalty
News Release
Georgia Institute of Technology
June 29, 2005
According to a recent marketing research study, religious fundamentalists form strong attachments to product brands. Despite their differences, most major world religions warn that attachment to fleeting material objects is an obstacle to spiritual transcendence. Therefore, religious fundamentalists, who try to strictly follow the tenets of divine scripture, ought to care little for worldly possessions like cars and clothing, says Nancy Wong, assistant professor of marketing at Georgia Tech College of Management.
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Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers
Opinion by John C. Danforth
The New York Times
June 17, 2005
It is important for those of us who are sometimes called moderates to make the case that we, too, have strongly held Christian convictions, that we speak from the depths of our beliefs, and that our approach to politics is at least as faithful as that of those who are more conservative. Our difference concerns the extent to which government should, or even can, translate religious beliefs into the laws of the state.
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The Rise of the Other Religious
Voice in the Public Arena
Opinion by Joan Chittister, OSB
National Catholic Reporter
Nov. 25, 2003
This country speaks very easily about the social, economic or political dimensions of a piece of legislation, of course. But we are far less comfortable with exploring the spiritual or moral effects of political actions. That, we seem to believe, must be reserved for the privacy of conscience. Questioning the role of the church in politics is a constantly recurring preoccupation in American life. The Founding Fathers struggled with the issue and so do we.
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Posted 6/20/05

> Faith And The City Leadership Institute “Graduates” Inaugural Class
Faith And The City e.Letter
June 22, 2005
They are black, white, Latina, Asian, and “other.” Each has a strong affiliation with an established faith tradition – Jewish, Muslim, Bahai’i, or Christian. They are a group of 23 women and men that is arguably as diverse as the Atlanta metro community of the 21 st century. They are the inaugural class of the Faith And The City Leadership Institute, and they recently completed a 6-month “intentional learning experience” to enhance their skills as people of faith – as public religious leaders working within their own faith traditions and working together for the greater good of the regional community.

> Radical Stances Stray from True Christianity
Guest Column by Daniel P. Matthews Jr.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 26, 2005
I hope that we can begin to rehabilitate the public face of Christianity and reclaim something truer to its original integrity. It is clear to me that the one who we Christians proclaim as Savior was about redemption and grace. Jesus' life was one of restless hospitality: He invited himself into the homes of unrepentant sinners and was all about making connections with God's people — not severing them.

> Moore 's Claims Omit the Obvious
Opinion by James L. Evans
Birmingham Post-Herald
But if we blame all of our country's current problems on the failure of the state to acknowledge God, what does that say about the church? After all, isn't the church a "public acknowledgement of God?" When congregations pray, aren't they engaged in public prayer? When the Bible is read, doesn't that count as Bible reading?

> AP Poll: Religion Key in American Lives
Associated Press
June 06, 2005
Americans are far more likely to consider religion central to their lives and to support giving clergy a say in public policy than people in nine countries that are close allies, according to an AP-Ipsos poll. Yet, the U.S. embrace of faith has its limits.

Posted 5/20/05

> Finding a Space for Faith in Politics
By Stephen Ruckman
Center for American Progress
January 5, 2005
[Barry] Goldwater recognized a core problem with how religious belief was then being injected into public policy, a problem that has only grown in the forty years since. That problem is the misuse of religious belief as a goad – an uncompromising prod dictating what actions public officials should take based on religious teachings. Criticizing attempts by religious leaders to tell citizens and lawmakers what they "must believe," and to "force government leaders into following their position," Goldwater was speaking out not against the expression of religious belief to public officials, but against the imposition of religious belief on those officials.

> Stuck in Lincoln's Land
By David Brooks
New York Times
May 5, 2005
Today, a lot of us are stuck in Lincoln's land. We reject the bland relativism of the militant secularists. We reject the smug ignorance of, say, a Robert Kuttner, who recently argued that the culture war is a contest between enlightened reason and dogmatic absolutism. But neither can we share the conviction of the orthodox believers, like the new pope, who find maximum freedom in obedience to eternal truth. We're a little nervous about the perfectionism that often infects evangelical politics, the rush to crash through procedural checks and balances in order to reach the point of maximum moral correctness.

Posted 3/17/2005

> Cut-Rate Religion Coverage
(By Andrew Walsh, Religion in the News, Winter 2005, Vol. 7, No. 3)
During the 1990s, good religion coverage was viewed as part of the solution to the problem of falling audiences, and some employment and news holes grew. But after more than a decade of unsolved problems, religion coverage is increasingly seen as part of the discredited, stodgy old paradigm that is failing to attract a new generation of readers and viewers.

> The Need for a Critical Left
(By Eli Zaretsky, Tikkun, November-October 2004)
The really great presidents in American history—those who were able to give the country its sense of connection to enduring moral and spiritual values—were, of course, party leaders and party builders. However, what gave these presidents their moral force and coherence was not their parties but rather the existence of a critical Left, one that kept the presidency "honest," so to speak, by constantly forcing it to reorient itself from its immediate and particularistic concerns to the larger issues that are always at stake.

Posted 2/21/2005

> Our New Religious Politics
(By Mark Silk, Religion in the News, Winter 2005)
But over the past quarter century the American civil religion has been invaded by what the Italian scholar Emilio Gentile calls political religion – religion as an instrument of domestic political combat. It was Falwell and company who began the now completed process of turning white evangelicals into a solid Republican voting bloc. In 2004 the GOP fully embraced the idea that churches and synagogues of all sorts were where to go for votes.

> Why America Needs a Spiritual Left
(By Michael Lerner, Tikkun, January/February 2005)
We are not advocating that people on the Left should all become religious or spiritual. What we are advocating for is a Left that is friendly not only to secularists and militant atheists, but also to people of faith who share a commitment to peace, social justice, and ecological sanity. We advocate for a Left which believes that the most po werful critique of this society must be rooted in challenging the way this society's capitalist marketplace fosters an ethos of selfishness and materialism.

> Interfaith Alliance Applauds President’s Expanded Moral Vision
(Press Release , The Interfaith Alliance, Feb. 3, 2005)
The Interfaith Alliance applauds the president for expanding his moral values agenda in his State of the Union address. The Interfaith Alliance has repeatedly stated that the moral values debate must reflect a wide array of religious and ethical concerns, beyond gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research…. We call on the president to remember his own words of compassion for the weak and the vulnerable when he expands tax giveaways for the wealthiest Americans. Too often, such tax cuts require reductions in funding for social programs.

> Response to 2005 Inaugural Address
(Rabbi Jack Moline, The Interfaith Alliance, Feb. 16, 2005)
But I would also be remiss if I did not note with great disappointment that the President's choice to offer God's blessing at the end of his inauguration ceremony disenfranchised millions of non-Christian Americans with his choice of signature language. All the promises of equality and equal consideration are empty if a person's faith is relegated to second class because it is called by a different sacred name.

> Budget Cuts on Main Street
(By Ron Scherer, Christian Science Monitor, Feb. 9, 2005)
More than at any time in the four years of the Bush administration, Main Street will be feeling the impact of the federal budget if the president's spending plan is adopted.
From Altoona, Pa., where Amtrak stops, to the nation's congested airports, Americans could be looking at changes that will affect their everyday lives – everything from after-school programs to cotton harvests – as a result of bigger-than-normal cutbacks.

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