Free Republic

From a very interesting GetReligion.org interview, conducted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey, with Associated Press reporter Tom Breen:In your role at the AP, how do you boil down everything into a brief story and still maintain nuance, balance, complexities, etc.? The AP’s very talented religion editor once described the faith beat as “intimidating,” and I think that’s absolutely right, for precisely this reason. There is no government, economic philosophy or baseball team on the planet with a back story as rich, detailed and complex as, say, Judaism. Or Christianity. Or Islam. Or Hinduism. You get the idea. What we strive to...

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, director of media relations for the USCCB, wonders if "late night comics who mock the church ... have set the tone of the government's current salvos against religious freedom", and then warns:In the effort to redefine marriage, we see the government threatening religious discrimination in the name of--you guessed it--preventing discrimination. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton, declares that marriage is between one man and one woman. But the Department of Justice, which is charged with defending Acts of Congress like DOMA against constitutional challenge, declared in March...

A few days ago, Dr. Paul Kengor—who has written books about the religious beliefs of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Hillary Clinton—wrote a thoughtful opinion piece for USA Today in which he concluded: In short, and I don't mean this to be disparaging, with Barack Obama we are witnessing the most unconventional faith profile of a president in arguably 200 years. The assessment we're getting from a curious public is not a crass misperception by a bunch of intolerants, but, rather, natural puzzlement.Of course, it shouldn't be difficult to rectify misperceptions. Throughout American history, presidents have been asked about...

It was described as “elegant,” “Spirit-filled,” and “awesome.” One man said he’d learned more Scripture in two hours on that Saturday than he had in his entire life! Two Protestants who attended are now headed to the Catholic Church.International Flavor One said she cried tears of joy all the way home. The other, a resident of Missouri, came because she didn’t think Catholics studied Scripture and wanted to see for herself what this conference was about. She said she was flabbergasted and awestruck. To the delight of her husband, who took her to the event, she bought a Catholic Bible...