Religion

Politicians and political activists frequently declare the end of the world will occur if their candidate isn't elected, or if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Some conservative Christians think the end is on the way because of behavior and practices they judge immoral. Somehow the country, not to mention the planet, survives and when "doomsday" passes, the prognosticators live to predict…

If you listen to the passengers and crew who flew on American Airlines Flight 1561 last weekend, there's no doubt about what happened on their harrowing trip: A Yemeni man shrieking "Allahu akbar!" at the top of his lungs more than 30 times rushed the cockpit door twice intending to take down the plane and kill everyone on board. The clammy, sweaty lone male passenger exhibited classic…

Novelist and infamous liar James Frey has a new novel out, "The Final Testament of The Holy Bible," which he pompously holds forth as a "theoretical third volume of the Bible" that conceives of a second coming of the Christ in the person of "an alcoholic bisexual living in the Bronx who impregnates prostitutes, titillates priests and becomes the ultimate seducer himself," John Murray of the…

When a liberal Democrat is Speaker of the House, everything they say is newsworthy, but when a conservative Republican is Speaker, the most newsworthy people are angry protesters of the Speaker. This came true on Sunday, when The Washington Post story on Speaker John Boehner's commencement address at Catholic University of America in D.C. by Katherine Shaver was all about the protesters, and…

Saturday’s The Early Show on CBS gave attention to a number of liberal faculty members at Catholic University who, in a letter, questioned House Speaker John Boehner’s Catholic credentials on helping the poor ahead of the Ohio Republican’s speech at the university’s commencement. CBS’s Betty Nguyen noted that "not everyone" at the university "is looking forward to" his speech, and recounted…

Denizens of the Daily Kos were delighted Monday by a more-than-6,300-word rant by an abortionist from Texas bylined "Beket." The headline was "Extreme Religion Stops a Thinking Brain -- and Kills Women and Teenage Girls." Naturally, it was "One of the best diaries I have read on DKos," wrote one thrilled commenter. "Well-written. Well-thought out."  Dr. "Beket" began: "I am a proud, even…

Okay, so it's not as immediately offensive as say calling for support of Planned Parenthood on Mother's Day, but Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite's "God the Mother" post at "On Faith" on May 7 is another example of how the site thumbs its nose at traditional Christian orthodoxy: I always miss my mother a lot on Mother’s Day. My mother died when I was in my early twenties. Yet, through being “…

Mother's Day is around the corner. While the rest of us are agonizing over what to give mom on her special day, the Washington Post religion website "On Faith" sees it as another excuse to bash conservatives for trying to defund Planned Parenthood. "This Mother's Day, support family planning," urges the teaser headline for Debra Haffner's May 6 post (see below page break for screen capture).

According to the man ABC News relies on for religious analysis, it's impossible to say whether Osama bin Laden was "evil." Father Edward Beck, the network's religion correspondent, appeared with Bill O'Reilly on Tuesday and offered moral equivalence on the subject of the terrorist's death.     When the O'Reilly Factor anchor pressed Beck on whether bin Laden truly represented malevolence,…

Several media outlets on Sunday did their best to cast doubt on the legacy of Pope John Paul II as the Catholic Church beatified the late pontiff. NPR highlighted how the pope apparently "alienated many Catholics who began leaving the church in droves." CNN brought on a liberal theologian who claimed that John Paul II "led us backwards rather than forward." NBC played up the "avalanche of…

The pastor who preached the Easter sermon that Barack Obama heard this past Sunday is not another Jeremiah Wright, Time's Amy Sullivan insists in an April 29 blog "Swampland" blog post entitled "Conservatives Go After Another Obama Pastor." Sullivan was responding to the complaints of conservative talkers Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, who highlighted some controversial remarks Smith made to…

"Thank God for Jimmy Carter. He takes on the tough ones." That's how "On Faith" moderator Sally Quinn ended her April 26 post "Does God hate women?" Quinn insisted that it was "a question that never occurred to me until I began to study religion" and that the 39th president of the United States had a role in her examining the topic:

The RINO (reverend in name only) Terry Jones is like his fellow RINO, Fred Phelps, but in political drag. Jones, the "pastor" (PINO?) of the tiny and inconsequential Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., was jailed last week in Dearborn, Mich., "following a jury trial that found he was likely to create a 'breach of the peace' for plans to protest outside the Islamic Center of…

Time magazine is so biased that it even slams conservative Christians in the letters to the editor. Former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham's piece on pastor Rob Bell asking "Is Hell Dead?" apparently drew only one letter of opposition worth printing. Here's the one Time put in bold, large type: "Hell is easy to define. It would be spending eternity with evangelicals." -- Don Koons, DALLAS…