By Steve KornackiSalon For decades, the center of power in the Republican Party has been shifting southward, and the concentration of evangelical Christians within the party has been rising. So there’s some irony in the fact that as a series of crucial primaries in southern states approaches, the GOP race has, at least for now, become a two-man fight between a Mormon from Massachusetts and a Roman Catholic from Pennsylvania. That Mitt Romney faces particular suspicion from the evangelical voters... Read more

By David A. Fahrenthold and Felicia SonmezWashington Post As his campaign surges, Rick Santorum is testing an untested model for incorporating religion into his message. He is betting that Americans want a president who uses faith not just to inspire — but also to judge. This weekend, Santorum told supporters in Ohio that President Obama’s environmental views reflect “some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible.” Santorum said later that he believes Obama is a Christian, but he... Read more

The 2012 Sam Hill Lecture in Southern Religious History andThe Mills Distinguished Lecturer Fund in the Humanities present Double Consciousness and Double Identity: Being a Baptist-Buddhist in the South byDr. Carolyn Jones Medine March 29 at 7p.m.Mountain View Room, 417 Wilma M. Sherrill Center on the campus of UNC AshevilleFree and open to the public Sponsored by the Departments of Religious Studies and History with assistance from the Mills Distinguished Lecturer Fund at UNC Asheville Hybrid identities in African diaspora... Read more

by Diana Butler BassHuffington Post Something startling is happening in American religion: We are witnessing the end of church or, at the very least, the end of conventional church. The United States is fast-becoming a society where Christianity is being reorganized after religion. In recent decades, untold numbers of people have left the Roman Catholic Church. In a 2008 survey, Pew research found that one in 10 Americans now considers themselves an ex-Catholic. The situation is so dire that the... Read more

For years it has been lamented that humanist groups and events lack adequate participation by racial minorities. “Our philosophy is inclusive,” goes the refrain. “Our doors are open. Anyone can come.” Nonetheless, the usual overwhelmingly white demographic remains substantially unchanged.We imagine we understand why. African-American and Hispanic communities are without freethought traditions, we argue, and longstanding religious orientations are built into their cultures. Therefore it’s up to us to bring humanism to them and hopefully overcome a longstanding bias against... Read more

By Hamil R. Harris It was Sunday morning, and the church was filled with more than 200 men, women and children, praying, singing and testifying. “I have been searching for a faith all of my life,” Melvin Davis, 60, of Southeast declared from the pulpit. The grocery clerk’s story, genial and direct, bared a quest for a spiritual home that long had come up short. Davis, who is African American, finally found what he was looking for in the Mormon... Read more

Rick Santorum seemed to question President Obama’s Christian values today when speaking about the president to a tea party group. The “president’s agenda” is “not about you,” he said. “It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your job. “It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology,” Santorum said to applause from the crowd. “Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.” The former Pennsylvania senator... Read more

We always knew it could happen: A devout Muslim heads a conservative political party that takes office in a multicultural Western country, then leads a campaign to enforce mandatory prayer and to lobby for religious-based values and laws. How will people react? Well, it happened in Britain this week, and here’s how they reacted: Judges and leading thinkers fought back in the name of a secular state, but the Queen, the Pope and Britain’s right-wing newspapers all spoke up in... Read more

There is a political fracas brewing this week about a rule announced by the Obama administration that requires most employers to offer free contraceptive services in their employees’ health plans. What’s so controversial about that? No one is required to use contraceptives under this rule. It just says that the services have to be made available. The problem, as you probably know, is that the Roman Catholic church opposes the use of contraceptives and Catholic institutions employ a lot of... Read more

by Damon Young Like all Mormon ex-missionaries, Mitt Romney knows what is best for women. “I respect and will protect,” he said during his 2002 campaign for Massachusetts governor, “a woman’s right to choose”. Unsurprisingly, this rhetoric did not last. As a conservative Christian, the Republican presidential candidate will oppose women’s control over their own reproductive destiny. This is why Romney tried to veto a Massachusetts law requiring religious hospitals to provide contraception for rape victims. It is why he... Read more