Casting Stones

Since this is my last day as a guest blogger on “Casting Stones,” I’m going to plug the book which prompted Beliefnet to invite me in the first place: The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, just published this week by HarperCollins. The Family is a narrative history of a self-described…

Tony Campolo is one of the true heroes of contemporary Christian leadership, a guy a non-Christian like myself can count on to offer not only provocative and compelling analysis of the world but also honest and even pointed challenges to his American co-religionists. That is to say, Campolo often speaks with a prophetic voice. But…

For all intents and purposes, the primary season (an unprecedentedly long and arduous endurance contest it was, particularly on the Democratic side) is now over, and the general election campaign has commenced. Before the nation plunges into the partisan atmosphere inevitably generated by a general presidential campaign, Americans need to pause, to reflect, and to…

Not, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact, in reading the transcript of his address, I loved everything he had to say. But it did strike me as funny that Obama hit every base in the Jewish game without offering very much in the way of details about how…

I’m be talking with Natasha Chart and the folks at OpenLeft for a book salon about The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, my new history of the “avant-garde” of American fundamentalism. It’s a story that spans from the early days of the Republic to the political ferment of the 1930s…

Mark Silk, an eminent scholar of religion, politics, and journalism, takes issue with my Casting Stones post on the how the press is re-arranging its account of Obama’s ascent now that his victory is assured: Jeff Sharlet is guest-blogging on Beliefnet, and at the end of his most recent post writes: The new media narrative,…

Remarks at AIPAC Policy Conference Senator Barack Obama June 4, 2008 As Prepared for Delivery It’s great to see so many friends from across the country. I want to congratulate Howard Friedman, David Victor and Howard Kohr on a successful conference, and on the completion of a new headquarters just a few blocks away. Before…

With the nomination clinched by Obama, it’s time to move on to the next stage of “journalism”: speculation! What lies ahead? What can we expect from a President Obama? Well, it’s hard to say, right? “Change.” “Hope.” That’s good. But will it be enough to corral the bitterest of Hillary’s supporters? I doubt it. There’s…

It looks like it’s the end of the line for Clinton and the beginning of a new battle for Obama, and that means it’s time for the press to do what it does best — tidy up the tale, craft a chronicle of inevitability, obscure its own role in the political process, and restore the…

I’ve been invited to guestblog here at Casting Stones this week because I have a new book about faith and politics out, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. More about that later. I’ve decided to start by ruffling some feathers with a glib title for a post about one of…

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