Religious Right
Two of the mantras that my evangelicalism has taught me over the years are these:
1. Be True to Scripture
2. Avoid Politics
The heart for God's Word is not all that surprising, given the "Sola [...]
I understand the sentiments shared by many voters in the recent Pew poll on faith and politics. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Social conservatives are growing more wary of church involvement in politics, joining moderates and liberals in their unease about blurring the [...]
As we pass the half-way point of our Jesus for President tour, we remember Jesus' admonition that we be "as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves." There is a lot of momentum around our little campaign of political misfits - from some of the mainstream media and from the dozen cities where we've had thousands of folks come together to plot goodness. And with the [...]
The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA.org) was launched in 1979, in response to growing concern "over an increase of [sic] questionable fund-raising practices in the nonprofit sector." As their Web site explains, Sen. Mark Hatfield challenged "a group of key Christian leaders" to begin policing their own mission agencies as a kind of "Christian Better Business Bureau."
Perhaps 30 years later, evangelicals, because of "an increase in [...]
The Christian Broadcasting Network talks to Jim Wallis in a recent segment on James Dobson's criticism of Barack Obama. Bishop Harry Jackson of the High Impact Leadership Coalition is also interviewed. Watch it.
Jim Wallis talks about the evangelical agenda in the context of James Dobson's recent criticism of Barack Obama. Watch it:
James Dobson, of Focus on the Family Action, and his senior vice president of government and public policy, Tom Minnery, used their "Focus on the Family" radio show to criticize Barack Obama's understanding of Christian faith. In the show, they describe Obama as "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."
The clear purpose of the show was to [...]
James Dobson, of Focus on the Family Action, and his senior vice president of government and public policy, Tom Minnery, used their "Focus on the Family" radio show to criticize Barack Obama's understanding of Christian faith. In the show, they describe Obama as "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."
The clear purpose of the show was to [...]
It is no secret that young evangelicals are opting out of the 'religious right' in ever-larger numbers, and are becoming more (what for lack of a better term we'll call) progressive. With the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, many young evangelicals are asking tough questions and beginning to make connections.
Our politics are coming out differently, but it is not that we reject everything our parents believe. Rather, we take seriously something beneath the rhetoric. We [...]
Recently I served on a panel at BookExpo America that explored evangelicals' changing attitudes toward politics. As each co-panelist spoke, I mentally applauded his assessment of how evangelicals are responding to, and changing, the current political climate. While there were some areas of disagreement, there was a much greater area of common ground among the four of us.
Except when it came to [...]
[continued from part one]
What's at issue in the SBC, and in the larger evangelical community (and, we could add, in the mainline and Roman Catholic communities as well), isn't whether faith is political. Nobody (or almost nobody) is arguing for dropping the second half of the great commandment -- so that "loving God" is about faith and is central, but "loving neighbor" is about politics [...]
A recent New York Times story, "Taking Their Faith, but Not Their Politics, to the People," highlights the challenge faced by followers of Christ who seek to integrate their faith with all aspects of life, including political life in a democracy. The article suggests to me a question that we should raise more frequently when people [...]
On CNN's The Situation Room, Jim Wallis and the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins talk about evangelical attitudes in the election. Watch it: