Progressive Revival

Although many pundits think the religious right is waning, Republican Bob McDonnell, whose political views were shaped by radical right-wing beliefs–those of Christian Reconstruction–appears poised to win Virginia’s upcoming gubernatorial election.   McDonnell’s ties to the Christian Right were not an issue until the late summer when a Washington Post reporter obtained a copy of McDonnell’s…

Some African churches have taken a frightening literal turn: accusing children of witchcraft and torturing or killing them to purify their souls.  Over the weekend, the Associated Press reported that more than 15,000 Nigerian children have been accused of being witches in the last decade, with around 1,000 of those children murdered because of the accusation. …

One of the President Obama’s first promises was that he would close Guantanamo Bay.  Closing Gitmo, which has been become a worldwide symbol of American abuse and intertwined with the horrors of Abu Ghraib, has been supported by military leaders and civil liberty activists alike.  But once the rubber actually hit the road, cowardly representatives in…

When contraception use goes up, abortions go down. That is the not so surprising findings in the report Abortion Worldwide: A Decade of Uneven Progress on the declining number of world wide abortions coming out of the Guttmacher Institute this week.  As the Christian Science Monitor Reported: Contraceptive use is up worldwide, and with that has come a decline in…

I am a loyal supporter of your presidency. I worked hard in the campaign and have never been as proud of my country as I was when we elected you.  I’m writing to ask you to find another way ahead in Afghanistan. I wrote a similar letter to President Bush when he was preparing for…

Timothy Palmer is the Director of Communication and Outreach at the Religious Institute: Faith Voices on Sexuality and Religion People of faith will be conspicuous at the National Equality March in Washington this weekend.  I don’t remember hearing religious voices at my first March on Washington in 1993, so I consider this a sign of progress.  But no matter how many…

Afghanistan, the Olympics, the Dalai Lama…in a week when the President was domestically burdened by several international quagmiers or miscues, the Nobel Committee awards Barack Obama the Peace Prize.  According to the New York Times: The Nobel Committee announced in Oslo that it has awarded the annual peace prize to Barack Obama, just nine months into his…

Last summer a handful of students and I had the chance to meet with HH Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India.  We spent an hour and a half listening, laughing and learning his views on inter-faith relations, the meaning of non-violent resistance and world events. One of the questions asked to HH was: “Will Tibet’s future…

Roman Catholic Priests are the surprising voices of clarity and conviction in Michael Moore’s new film Capitalism: A Love Story.   The Priests in this documentary, one of whom married Mr. Moore and his wife, aren’t ambivalent – they characterize capitalism as evil.   This must be jarring for most moviegoers who have not had the pleasure…

Yesterday, a friend sent me a link to a video from Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas entitled “Taking the Hill.”  I thought it might be a political video encouraging conservative Christians to go to Washington to lobby against health care or some such thing.  Actually, it was much worse.  “Taking the Hill” is…

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