Tim LaHaye and his wife Beverly, founder of Ladies Against Women, announced yesterday that they are endorsing former House Speaker Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination for president. Tim LaHaye has been an influential power-broker in the religious right and the Republican Party for the past 30 years — this despite the fact that he has also spent those past 30 years assuring us that Jesus was coming back any day now and that the signs and prophecies make it... Read more
Hurting people is wrong. Hurting people in the name of the church hurts the church. I don’t want that second point to detract from the priority of the first one, but it’s also important. I was reminded of the UCC’s banned-from-the-Super Bowl ad above when reading Timothy Kincaid’s response, at Box Turtle Bulletin, to “An Open Letter from Religious Leaders in the United States to All Americans.” That letter, of course, isn’t really to “All Americans” any more than it’s... Read more
Jay Michaelson: “Why Rick Santorum Can’t Just Say: God Doesn’t Want You To Be Gay“ If it were social policy that motivated him, he’d read the studies of same-sex couples in Massachusetts and in other countries, which show that they raise children as well as opposite-sex couples, form stable families, and the rest. But what Santorum is motivated by is actually religion: a fear of sexuality and of women souped-up by a misreading of Leviticus, Romans, and Corinthians. But he... Read more
Arthur S. Brisbane, public editor for The New York Times, asks “Should the Times Be a Truth Vigilante?“: I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about. OK, Brisbane seems unclear on both sides of “All the news” and “fit to print,” so let’s review. “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” That’s the job. That’s it. That is what being... Read more
Here’s some good news … The Montana Supreme Court sticks up for citizens against Citizens United. Elizabeth Kennedy reports on the “Battle of the Supremes“: In upholding the section of Montana’s Corrupt Practices Act that restricts direct corporate political spending, the Montana Supreme Court attacked the Citizens United fiction that independent expenditures aren’t corrupting and that corporate political spending isn’t a danger to democratic government. The Montana jurists’ decision in Western Tradition Partnership states unequivocally, “The impact of unlimited corporate... Read more
Mitt Romney on NBC’s Today show: You know, I think it’s about envy. I think it’s about class warfare. When you have a president encouraging the idea of dividing America based on the 99 percent versus one percent — and those people who have been most successful will be in the one percent — you have opened up a whole new wave of approach in this country which is entirely inconsistent with the concept of one nation under God. So... Read more
The Rev. Mark Driscoll has taken his all-American style of d-bag theology to the UK, telling British Christians to “man-up.” Let’s just say this: right now, name for me the one young, good Bible teacher that is known across Great Britain. You don’t have one – that’s the problem. There are a bunch of cowards who aren’t telling the truth. Well, I suppose N.T. Wright might not count as young, but … Young men, Driscoll says, won’t go to church... Read more
Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta points us to a column in the (Ind.) Journal & Courier by Baptist minister Steve Viars, calling on Tippecanoe County commissioners to approve the zoning application for an Islamic center. Viars sounds like a Baptist minister in this column — citing Roger Williams and the First Amendment in an op-ed that reads like a sermon: Refusing to grant this request simply because the petitioners are followers of Islam would be contrary to our country’s cherished ideals... Read more
Like hope, I have two daughters. And while they are not named Anger and Courage, they are both beautiful. This year one’s a junior and one’s a sophomore in high school. If they continue on their current schedule, that means they will graduate from college* in 2017 and 2018. So I pay attention to things like this post from Ezra Klein: “If we add 200,000 jobs a month, will recovery take 7 years or 12 years?” He writes: On Friday,... Read more
Left Behind II: Tribulation Force, Part 2 Left Behind II: Tribulation Force is, obviously, a sequel. As such it gets a bit bogged down initially in some awkwardly sequel-ish revisiting of stuff from the first movie. I’m happy to give director Bill Corcoran a pass on that, though, since this early part of the movie also makes me gratefully aware of how much this adaptation condenses, cuts and enlivens scenes that dragged on pointlessly for hundreds of pages in the... Read more
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