Many Christians believe that the words of the New Testament are set in stone. But scholars at the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary are chronicling just how much those words have evolved over time.For 11 years, they’ve combed through the earliest Greek manuscripts of each book in the New Testament and found more than 17,000 pages of variations. Their ultimate goal: the world’s first comprehensive, searchable online database showing how the New Testament has changed.The database is already up. The... Read more

The current contest among Republican hopefuls for the highest office in the United States has been characterized by unconstrained and sometimes spontaneous remarks by the candidates, as they vie with one another and with the pressure of the campaign. Among the leaders in the hard fought contest, Newt Gingrich,secure with a wide range of Washington experience, may have just made one such revealing outburst. On the other hand, his speaking may have been planned and thought out, an indication of... Read more

By now you’ve most likely seen Republican candidate Rick Perry’s most recent presidential 2012 campaign ad “Strong.” The ad has already inspired a number of parodies as well as criticism for what many perceive as a homophobic message. But little attention has been paid to its rhetorical moves—how the ad attempts to persuade its audience and make its argument. That’s where Religious Rhetorics comes in. Some moves are more obvious than others. The war metaphor for instance. Perry depicts a war... Read more

In an ad being run in Iowa, Texas Governor Rick Perry says, “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian. But you don’t have to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As president, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion, and I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.”I have several thoughts... Read more

By MARK OPPENHEIMERNew York Times For the first time in American history, a major political party may be choosing between two leading presidential candidates neither of whom is Protestant. If current polling holds through the Jan. 3 Iowa caucuses and beyond, the Republican nomination will come down to a choice between a Latter-day Saint, or Mormon, and a Roman Catholic. It is therefore time to celebrate the broad-mindedness of American voters, but also to mourn the bigotries that may still... Read more

One of the puzzles of the Republican presidential campaign is Newt Gingrich’s appeal to religious conservatives. The irony is that Gingrich, a Catholic convert who has had three marriages, is outperforming Romney, a lifelong Mormon and family man. In fact, less than a month before the Iowa caucuses, the former speaker of the House has three times the support of evangelicals in that state that Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, does. Now Romney is trying to mix it... Read more

When Rob Schwarzwalder, senior vice president at the Family Research Council, criticized evangelical groups for ignoring threats to religious freedom, he got some pushback.“[T]o say that these organizations have not spoken out is not true,” concluded one article in the Christian Post, though it also acknowledged that Schwarzwalder might be looking for a “more robust and vocal outcry” than the organizations had provided.The dispute was aired in online posts on the website of First Things, the journal that offers ecumenical... Read more

In a religion-themed ad, Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry vowed, as U.S. president, he would end what he called President Obama’s “war on religion.” In his new ad, which began airing Wednesday, the Texas governor also pledge to fight attacks from the left on the country’s religious heritage. Read the rest here Read more

I used to love hip-hop.I don’t remember the day I fell out of love, but one day it suddenly didn’t matter that I knew who DJ Kool Herc was, or that like some hip-hop griot I could explain how sampling was born, or expound on the anger and angst that fueled a graffiti artist’s civic rebellion. One day I woke up (Spike Lee style) and didn’t care what mix tape was about to drop, which album leaked or who the... Read more

from the RootA recent New York Times article profiled African Americans who don’t believe in God or who have eschewed the faith that many assume is central to the black experience. What does the apparent rise in atheism and agnosticism (pdf) among blacks tell us about the utility of religion for African Americans in today’s social and political climate? Interviews with academics, activists and advocates from everywhere on the religious spectrum reveal the diversity of views on this historically fraught... Read more