With battles already raging in Florida and Texas over whether to teach intelligent design in school, the topic will soon gain even more attention thanks to the April release of a new film by conservative actor Ben Stein. The traditional battle lines are drawn, with religious conservatives fighting for the teaching of intelligent design, and…

I laughed when I heard the line in this new Obama ad about how he “organized with Christian churches” to help unemployed workers. Normally, just saying “churches” pretty much implies “Christian.” But with a chunk of Americans still thinking he’s Muslim, I guess Obama felt he ought to be more explicit about the Christianness of…

As we mull Jeremiah Wright’s “God Damn America” theory, it’s worth remembering that in an earlier era, politicians routinely talked in these terms. During the revolutionary era, there was an assumption that God was paying attention and, thanks to the nobility of our cause, intervening on the side of the Americans. But when things were…

Yesterday I wrote that it was the best instance of a black politician articulating the anxieties and racial resentments of whites. It’s worth reflecting for a moment on the (obvious) fact that we still refer to Obama as a black politician rather than a half-black-half-white politician. Someone with an Irish mom and an Italian dad…

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Steve Waldman

Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.

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