Religion

On Thursday's Hardball, Chris Matthews determined that Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner could be in danger of being forced out of Congress by Blue Dog Dems who face uphill battles in red states because, as he put it, "people in the rural areas of this country who are Christian conservative culturally - you can say backward if you want...don't like this kind of stuff." (video after the…

There must be something in Chicagoland's drinking water which causes either acute memory loss or a persistent inability to pay attention. First, we had presidential candidate Barack Obama, who sat in Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ for nearly two decades, but who supposedly had no idea Pastor Wright was so hostile towards America ("US KKK of A"), its history (we deserved the…

"I am fairly certain that when Paul Ryan first decided to publicly share his admiration of Ayn Rand, he could not have imagined it would lead to him speed-walking to his SUV to avoid a young Catholic trying to give him a Bible and telling him to pay more attention to the Gospel of Luke," Time's Amy Sullivan snarked in a June 3 Swampland blog post.  

Newsweek's Eleanor Clift said on PBS's "McLaughlin Group" Friday that the press really aren't interested in Mitt Romney being a Mormon. This amazingly transpired roughly 24 hours before her magazine revealed a June 13-20 cover story about Romney entitled "The Mormon Moment: How the Outsider Faith Creates Winners" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Is it appropriate to be focusing on a presidential candidate's religion in 2011? Newsweek certainly thinks it is, and created a cover for its June 13-20 issue prominently highlighting Mitt Romney being a Mormon in a fashion that is guaranteed to raise a few eyebrows:

At the Daily Kos blog, the blogger known as SixDollarLiberal created a ruckus on Wednesday by titling an article “In Defense of Sharia.” You know the article was a bad idea when it began with the disclaimer “I was raised a Christian, and became an atheist/agnostic as an adult. I have a much better understanding of Christianity than of Islam. If I get anything wrong in this, please feel free to…

Why must The Washington Post promote communists with more ardor than they could muster for any American Republican? Tuesday’s front page of the Post oozed: “‘El Padre,’ still preaching.” The subject was Ernesto Cardenal, a defrocked Catholic priest and the culture minister of the Sandinista dictatorship in Nicaragua in the 1980s. Surrounding a huge photo on the front of the Style section was…

Sally Quinn pronounced Oprah Winfrey  "America's high priestess" and a "true religious leader" in a Thursday item on The Washington Post's "On Faith" website. Quinn, who waxed ecstatic over Oprah Winfrey's final episode, even went so far to compare Winfrey's last hurrah to a papal Mass: "The pope couldn't have done better." The writer launched right into painting Oprah as a spiritual guru in…

Mild-mannered Minnesotan Tim Pawlenty may have his own Rev. Wright, Salon.com's Justin Elliott sensationally alerted readers of the War Room blog Thursday morning. The reason, Elliott argues: the former Minnesota governor's preacher believes in manmade global warming and wants a liberal immigration reform policy enacted into law:

As readers are likely aware, former Vermont governor Howard Dean is a contributor to CNBC, and in this role, he continues to say the darnedest things. On Monday's "The Last Word," Dean said of the far-right, "They hate Muslims, they hate gays, they hate immigrants, and the rhetoric in the primaries shows that" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In her May 20 Moderator's View blog post at "On Faith," entitled "May 21, 2011: Not the end of the world," Washington Post's Sally Quinn at one point describes a belief in the "end times" as one held by "a large segment of Christians." But that's kind of like saying "a large segment of Hindus believe in reincarnation."

CBS's Elaine Quijano filed a slanted report on Wednesday's Evening News about the new report on the Catholic priest child sex abuse scandal. All but one of the sound bites which Quijano played during the segment either leaned negative against the Catholic Church or completely slammed the religious body. Anchor Katie Couric heralded the negative reaction about the report from some quarters in…

CNN's Anderson Cooper heavily scrutinized the new study of the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandal Wednesday, but featured no one from the church's side to defend the report. Cooper gave his own critical commentary of the study, voiced the concerns of many clergy abuse victims, and brought on for a soft interview a disillusioned Catholic priest who is resigning from the clergy. However,…

Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller wrote a story on "The Fight Over Billy Graham's Legacy," but the most notable thing that comes out of it is Miller's loathing of Rev. Franklin Graham (no relation). Miller clearly believes he's mangling his father's moderation, especially when it comes to Islam: Franklin — who’s been accused of being a rhetorical and theological bully, saying, for example…