Religion

It’s no longer Voltaire’s Europe.

Given our inveterate mocking of the New York Times, we’d be remiss if we didn’t draw attention to an incisive op-ed published in the paper’s September 20 edition by the Cato Institute’s Emily Ekins. The headline: “The Liberalism of the Religious Right.”

“The question is, ‘Who can you trust?’”

The depressing reality behind Cardinal Cupich's comments that the pope has "got to get on with other things."

The Catholic League president is doing more to discredit the Catholic church than perhaps anyone else.

An op-ed in the New York Times on July 14 caught our attention: “We Pick a Party, Then a Church.” The author, Michele Margolis, an assistant professor of political science at Penn, contends that the common assumption about religious and political affiliations in America—that party affiliations are…

J.D. Greear, the new president of the Southern Baptist Convention, wants to distance his church from political partisanship. But it would be a mistake to assume that means a retreat from the public sphere.

Reflecting on the prominence of the art.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

'Reportedly' is a key word here.

The American bishop preaching at the royal wedding will bring pizzazz—and prove the church is modernizing.

Getting to know Sanderson, Texas, through the way it celebrates Easter.

The website POTUS WDC posted a false story with the bogus headline, “Catholic Archbishop Says Pedophilia Is ‘Spiritual Encounter With God.’”

We laid our grandfather to rest last weekend. Among his many honorifics—Claude the Wise, the Servant, the War Hero, the Parent, Her Majesty’s Loyal and Precious Cincinnati Reds Fan—was Claude the Catholic.

At the height of his influence in the 1960s and ’70s, Billy Graham was a man about whom nearly every adult in America had an opinion. He was everywhere—his weeklong evangelistic “crusades” packed stadiums around the globe; innumerable books and articles carried his byline; his face appeared on the…

Just a few days before America’s Pastor, Billy Graham, succumbed to Parkinson’s or cancer or pneumonia (when you’re 99-years-young, ailments tend to arrive in multiple choice fashion), I was walking through Washington’s new Museum of the Bible with my family. As local museums go, the Bible museum…

What evangelicals gain and lose by doing business with the president.

In a March 2016 speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference, Donald Trump declared that if he became president, he would “move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.” His choice of phrase—“eternal capital”—perhaps bears some…

Of the many things that a young fellow, barely knee-high to a grasshopper, might aspire to be when he grows up, one that doesn’t often come to mind is “grifter.” Yet in my early 20s, intoxicated by the demimonde allure of pulp novels by Jim Thompson and Charles Willeford, I was reminded of a time…

Bill Cosby. Bill O’Reilly. Harvey Weinstein. Kevin Spacey. Charlie Rose. Matt Lauer. John Conyers. What drives these men to engage in such terrible behavior? The Book of Genesis may offer us some answers.

The moment its doors officially open, the new Museum of the Bible, with its prime real estate in the capital, will be the nation’s most prominent institution dedicated to educating the general public about Judeo-Christian ideas and history. But it is far from the first attraction built by…

What role does the Bible play in Americans’ lives? A century ago the answer to that question would have been straightforward: It was the most important book in the home, perhaps read daily, and the place where major events in a family’s history (births, deaths, marriages) were recorded. It was…

The Washington Post last week featured this arresting headline: “ ‘A breach of trust’: A preschool, a church and a change in mission.”

Judge Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for Alabama's upcoming special Senate election, denies allegations that he romantically pursued teenagers as young as 14 when he was in his 30s. Even if the allegations are true, one statewide elected official in Alabama said it's "much ado about nothing."…

In case you haven’t finished reading the 429-page House Republicans tax bill, go to pages 427 and 428 to see what it proposes to do regarding the Johnson Amendment. Passed in 1954 and named for its chief sponsor, Senator Lyndon Johnson, the amendment prohibits politicking by tax-exempt nonprofits,…

On October 31, exactly 500 years will have passed since a German monk named Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. That’s at least the tradition, but certainly Luther circulated his collection of brief contentions. Mainly he intended to provoke a debate…

On October 31, exactly 500 years will have passed since a German monk named Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. That’s at least the tradition, but certainly Luther circulated his collection of brief contentions. Mainly he intended to provoke a debate…

Samuel Johnson, about to tuck into a pork roast, is supposed to have said that the only thing that would make the food before him better is if he were a Jew. Stendhal, I years ago heard, said that the only thing wrong with ice cream was that it wasn’t illegal. The question both these men raise is…

With police intensifying their long-running corruption probes, Israel is awash with speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu’s days as prime minister may be numbered. Opponents—both within the Likud party and without—have been organizing. Sensing the danger, Netanyahu and his allies have fought back,…

With police intensifying their long-running corruption probes, Israel is awash with speculation that Benjamin Netanyahu’s days as prime minister may be numbered. Opponents—both within the Likud party and without—have been organizing. Sensing the danger, Netanyahu and his allies have fought back,…

To read the second and final stanza of Catherine Chandler’s “Chasubles”—“Summer’s a smiling charlatan / camouflaged in green / where violet truths lie mantled in / the seen and the unseen”—one might think American religious poetry is now much as it was in Emily Dickinson’s day. The reclusive maid…

Earlier this year, WEEKLY STANDARD senior editor Christopher Caldwell wrote the single best piece on the opioid crisis in America. In Mosaic Magazine, he's just published another great piece on the topic of addiction: "Why There Is No Secular Substitute for Alcoholics Anonymous."

So ingrained are religious prejudices in societies the world over that people tend to think that atheists are more likely to be serial killers—at least, that’s the way the New York Times reported a new social-psychology study in Nature Human Behaviour.

Poor Richard. Richard Dawkins, that is. The British evolutionary biologist and professional atheist devoted years of his life to blasting Christianity, and the intellectual left couldn’t shovel enough praise onto his head. But more recently he has begun blasting Islam, and uh-oh! The Berkeley-based…

Soon after President Trump issued his executive order on "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty," which includes potential "conscience protections" for those with religious objections to certain health insurance mandates, Planned Parenthood issued a press release noting that some "faith…

The ancient author of Ecclesiastes wrote, "Of making many books there is no end," and that is undeniably true as we consider Martin Luther. With the sole exception of Jesus Christ, more books have been written about Luther than about any other person who has ever lived. In 1983, the 500th…

There's a small movie coming out about Madalyn Murray O'Hair. Unless you're over a certain age and/or deeply invested in the intersection of the law and religious freedom, this name might not mean much to you. But half a century ago Madalyn Murray O'Hair was reasonably famous. She founded the group…

One of the more prescient essays in recent years is Jody Bottum's "The Spiritual Shape of Political Ideas," which I'm proud to say was published in THE WEEKLY STANDARD. The essay posits that religious ideas are transforming politics as we know it, only instead of the hand-wringing about the Moral…

Five hundred years ago, an obscure German churchman named Martin Luther issued a call for debate on an abstruse aspect of late medieval theology. From that mundane event followed a sequence of cascading consequences that would divide the Western Catholic tradition and leave a legacy, Protestantism,…

This evening, the Washington policy debate over radical Islam is promised a fresh interfaith effort. In the Dirksen Senate Office Building, beginning at 6 p.m., Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ben Cardin (D-Md) will cohost a reception honoring a new "Muslim Jewish Advisory Council" (MJAC). The…

What makes a meaningful life? It's an often strenuous, and in no way uniformly happy, existence compelled by service to some higher calling—higher, anyway, than selfish gratification. It's also an explainable life, simple enough to be told back to you as a story, but it keeps in touch with the…

In a case awaiting review by the Supreme Court, the Pacific Legal Foundation has filed a friend-of-the-court brief making an argument for one of the nation’s fundamental principles—the equal protection of the law.

Whichever way you look, white Catholics have called it. They've been picking winning presidents since Nixon. And overall, American Catholics' growing diversity projects the nation's demographic future. Today, one third of American Catholics are Latino, and two thirds of Catholics under the age of…

It’s no easy feat to condense the subject of religion, much less comment on its themes, within 256 pages. Similar efforts like Stephen Prothero's God Is Not One and Huston Smith's The World's Religions have done so at nearly twice the length of A Little History of Religion. But Richard Holloway,…

Back in May, when Trump won the Indiana primary, I felt like such a dope. I was actually waiting for someone to tell me what we were going to do. Just days earlier, we'd all stood on the platform together, refusing to get on the Trump Train.

A recent New York magazine profile of the Manhattan minister Timothy Keller lists the types of congregants filling his auditorium pews: "A cross-section of yuppie Manhattanites—doctors, bankers, lawyers, artists, actors, and designers, some of them older, most of them in their twenties or thirties."

A  recent New York magazine profile of the Manhattan minister Timothy Keller lists the types of congregants filling his auditorium pews: "A cross-section of yuppie Manhattanites—doctors, bankers, lawyers, artists, actors, and designers, some of them older, most of them in their twenties or…

Kenneth Woodward's new book Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama is out, winning a positive review from D.G. Hart in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal: "His subject is how Americans get religion, and the author's own formation as a Catholic both…

Last January at Liberty University, Donald Trump told the audience that as president he would "protect Christianity." Since then he has reiterated that promise. And last week, at the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit, he declared his intention this way: In "a Trump administration our…

"It might may (sic) no difference, but for [Kentucky] and [West Virginia] can we get someone to ask [Sanders's] belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern…

PHILADELPHIA — At the Democratic National Committee I ran into Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and Libertarian Party nominee for president. Here's a transcript of our conversation, edited for clarity, and reorganized thematically.

The Democratic party has been plunged into turmoil over an email focusing on, of all things, whether or not Bernie Sanders believes in God. It's a remarkable turn of events, considering that Sanders has tried so hard to avoid talking about that very subject.

Legend has it that during the Black Plague, superstitious Europeans started killing cats. The idea was that witches had caused the plague and cats were disguised devils, serving as the witches' "familiar spirits," ergo killing them would hurt the witches and hopefully spare people from the disease.

Before Memorial Day, the California state legislature is expected to vote on two bills restricting religious liberty. One, AB 1888, would cut off public grants to all colleges and universities without policies specifically protecting gay, lesbian and transgender students from any form…

Clinton supporter Susan Shin Angulo almost uttered the phrase "Under God" during her introduction for Hillary Clinton in Blackwood, New Jersey Wednesday.

A group of believers from the soldiers of the Caliphate .  .  . set out targeting the capital of prostitution and vice, the lead carrier of the cross in Europe—Paris." Thus did the Islamic State claim credit for its terror spree in the City of Light in November, the latest in a string of murderous…

The Constitution provides that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." But, as Gary Scott Smith of Grove City College writes in his new book, Religion in the Oval Office, "Throughout American history many citizens have…

A top aide to Hillary Clinton is attacking Donald Trump for his proposal for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

With the war in Syria becoming ever more complex and murderous, it’s worthwhile to revisit a guiding principle of Barack Obama: The use of American military power is likely to do more harm than good in the Middle East, and even in the region’s violent struggles, soft power is important, if not…

Tonight's Democratic presidential debate promises to focus heavily on gun control. But it wasn't too long ago that the leading Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, touted her own gun usage and asserted that Americans don't "cling to guns."

On Monday, President Obama asked Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson about her faith:

Say this for President Obama: His troll game is strong. During his opening remarks welcoming Pope Francis, he abandoned his “freedom to worship” language and instead said: “People are only free when they can practice their faith freely.” And that, “We in the United States cherish our religious…

Because presidential politics are as much about in-group signaling as actual policy, Ben Carson is locked in a media-generated controversy about whether or not he’d be down with having a Muslim president. Carson was asked about this deeply-important question on Meet the Press. He said no. And when…

Back in 1999, The Weekly Standard ran one of my favorite cover lines ever: The New Europe: Menace or Farce? I often think of that question when I watch Pope Francis.

Most church groups and prominent religious voices speaking to the Iran nuclear deal are supportive. Most notable among them is the U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops. 

Department of Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson says that the Islamic State wants to be viewed as Islamic, but they aren't. 

The lone bright spot last week was the release of Ryan Anderson's much-anticipated (by me, at least) book on Obergefell and the future of marriage. It's called Truth Overruled: The future of marriage and religious freedom and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Ever since the environmental movement began it has had a religious fervor: Like God, Earth is always capitalized, and there is an annual celebration, Earth Day, rather like holidays celebrated by other religions. Of course, the dogmas of green religionists have changed over time: Prophecies of a…

Justice Anthony Kennedy, while dictating one of the most sweeping social changes in history in his opinion in the Obergefell v. Hodges case that legalized same-sex marriage across America, waxes magnanimous towards foes of the expansion of the millennia-old definition of marriage. He said those who…

Speaking Tuesday at the 45th Annual Washington Conference of the Council of the Americas, Secretary of State John Kerry said that "countries are far more likely to advance economically and socially when citizens have faith in their governments and are able to rely on them for justice and equal…

Secretary of State John Kerry has often spoken to the Muslim world during his tenure, particularly during the past year as negotiations with Iran have intensified and conflict with the Islamic State has escalated. But what Kerry has not said during the past twelve months is also significant. A…

During President Obama's tenure, religious Americans have been increasingly marginalized by an administration that can be intolerant or at least unaccomodating of beliefs that conflict with its policies, regulations, or legislative goals. Perhaps most notably, President Obama campaigned by…

In an effort to sign up as many consumers as possible for insurance under the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare), the Obama administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to partner with churches and other faith-based groups, even publishing sample church bulletin inserts, flyers, and scripts for…

The Associated Press reports:

Prominently featured at the website of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is an "An Open Letter of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to our American Jewish Interfaith Partners" which is signed by the denomination's three senior officials and which begins:

On March 24, World Vision, one of the nation’s best-known Christian relief and development nonprofits and one of the world’s largest charities, announced that it would no -longer exclude from employment, on its stateside staff of 1,100, Christians who are in legal same-sex marriages. Two days…

Ben Carson is warming to the idea of running for president. Since the famous brain surgeon retired last year from Johns Hopkins Hospital, he’s been speaking around the country to enthusiastic audiences. And they’ve affected his thinking about seeking national office.

This week, the Supreme Court affirmed a New York town council's tradition of beginning its meetings with a prayer. In Town of Greece v. Galloway, the court held, by a bare majority, that the First Amendment's Establishment Clause does not prohibit such prayers led by local clergymen, even when the…

During a talk to the U.S. embassy staff in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at the first stop on his trip to Africa, Secretary of State John Kerry remarked about what he called the "different cross-currents of modernity" and the challenges they present on the African continent. The comments contain a veiled…

Amid the usual news stories this Easter Sunday – accounts of the president’s family attending church and the pope addressing multitudes – there is this startling and vastly hopeful headline:

Former New York City mayor is pledging to spend $50 million this year to push gun control, the New York Times reports. For this and other deeds (such as taking on obesity and smoking), Bloomberg believes he's going to heaven.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has just released this statement in response to Brandeis University's decision to rescind her invitation to receive an honorary degree:

Reza Aslan's book on Jesus, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, has gotten tons of attention, and Aslan has gotten lots of sympathy, because of some of the questions he was asked on a Fox interview. We've already addressed some of the issues regarding Aslan, but now, over at the Jewish…

Fox News’s now infamous interview with Reza Aslan last week has rallied much of the media to the Iranian-born and now Hollywood-based academic’s defense, and catapulted his recently published Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth to number one on Amazon. Fox's Lauren Green grilled the…

Yuval Levin, writing for Mosaic: 

'Time was when the whole of life went forward in the family,” the historian Peter Laslett once wrote, “in a circle of loved, familiar faces. .  .  . That time has gone forever. It makes us very different from our ancestors.” Laslett was writing in 1965, as he lamented the decline of the family over…

President Obama thanked Boston marathon volunteers earlier today:

Even though it’s only April, the New York Times may already have run the most embarrassing correction that will appear in any major newspaper in 2013. In their story on Pope Francis’s first Easter message, no less than the Times’s Vatican reporter informed readers, “Easter is the celebration of the…

Cardinals will not allowed to access their Twitter accounts during conclave, according to Catholic News Service. This restriction is applicable to the 9 cardinals who have Twitter accounts. In all, there are "117 red-vested princes of the church who are eligible to vote for a new pope."

Responding to a question about the retirement of the pope, U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon thanked the pope for his "profound commitment ... to interfaith dialogue."

In a statement marking the pope's retirement, President Barack Obama said, "I have appreciate our work together over these last four years."

The Vatican released this statement from Pope Benedict XVI announcing his plan to resign on February 28:

The newly discovered 2008 video of Chuck Hagel has drawn attention, as it should, for his comments dismissing the U.S. even “thinking” about acting militarily against Iran, and for his seeming to be more concerned about Israel's nuclear weapons than Iran's.

Secretary of State John Kerry yawned through the morning's prayer breakfast. Via the pool report:

This morning on MSNBC, New York Times columnist Nick Kristof asserted that Bill Gates, who was seated nearby on set, is "richer than God":

Sarajevo

There are some facts so obvious that only a liberal could deny them. One of them is that, from Benghazi to Be’er Sheva, the West is under attack.

Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts has banned a Christian group from campus because the group requires student leaders to adhere to "basic biblical truths of Christianity." The decision to ban the group, called the Tufts Christian Fellowship, was made by officials from the university's…

Although not widely noticed, Mitt Romney seems to be on his way to capturing as much of the white evangelical vote as George W. Bush famously did in 2004. Bush got 79 percent. A Pew poll conducted before the first presidential debate had Romney getting 74 percent of white evangelicals versus 19…

Addressing a largely Catholic audience Monday night at an event sponsored by the John Carroll Society in Washington, D.C., Cardinal Timothy Dolan emphasized the non-sectarian, non-partisan—catholic with a small “c”—nature of the fight for religious liberty.  “It is not some far right, extremist…

Rabbi David Wolpe offered the benediction last night at the Democratic convention and made sure to emphasize that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. "[Y]ou have taught us that we must count on one another; that our country is strong through community, and that the children of Israel on the way to…

"God" has been removed from this year's Democratic party platform. 

St. Petersburg, Fla.

The latest ad from Mitt Romney's campaign goes after Barack Obama for declaring "war on religion."

Just in time for the nearly 2 million member Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly this week, which will consider anti-Israel divestment, some prominent Christian activists have released a new anti-Israel salvo, called Kairos USA.

A German court has ruled that male circumcision is a crime. "Who cuts boys for religious reasons is liable to prosecution for assault," a report in the German-language Financial Times Deutschland reads, via Google translate. "Neither the parents nor the right to freedom of religion guaranteed in…

A fair number of Americans would probably tell you that Memorial Day is held to celebrate the Indy 500. And, even those who are aware of why, actually, the day has been set aside tend to honor it in the breech, if at all. On my way, every year, to the service in our town, I am struck by how many…

Reporting from Carrollton, Arkansas, the Washington Post finds some locals still upset with actions of a "Mormon militia" over 150 years ago. The Post reports:

President Obama's position on same sex marriage might be "evolving," as he's admitted himself, but he wasn't always so unclear about where he stood. Consider this interview from 2004: 

In his tragedy Phoenissae, Seneca wrote “Anyone can stop a man’s life, but no one his death; a thousand doors open on to it.” For Seneca, death was a part of life, a natural process that could not be avoided. And indeed, at the time, death pervaded the world through famine, disease, childbirth, and…

At an event at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, President Barack Obama tried to rouse the crowd by asking for an "amen."

Michelle Obama made a remarkable claim when talking up her husband, President Barack Obama, at a campaign event earlier today in Nashville, Tennessee.

President Obama hosted a pre-Easter prayer breakfast at the White House this morning with members of his administration and clergymen. Prominent breakfast attendees included Rev. Al Sharpton, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, and Rev. Julius Scruggs. White House aides told the press pooler at the breakfast…

Robert Kagan: "America has made the world freer, safer and wealthier."

Caroline May reports that "More than 2,500 evangelical and ministry leaders from a range of denominations have signed a letter to President Obama voicing their opposition to the administration’s new mandate requiring that all health insurance plans contain contraceptive coverage."

Windham, N.H.

The archbishop of Canterbury is going to resign next year. At least that’s the story making the rounds of newspapers in London, and the interesting part is not that the 61-year-old Rowan Williams should be willing to give up another decade in the job. Or even, if the Telegraph is right, that the…

Washington Post: "Solyndra employees: Company suffered from mismanagement, heavy spending"

On Sunday, the Episcopal Church’s National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. will host “A Call to Compassion” to commemorate 9/11.  President Obama will attend and speak at the concluding “Concert for Hope.”  Patti LaBelle will sing. CNN’s Anderson Cooper will host. After the recent earthquake and the…

Republican presidential candidate Buddy Roemer believes he's gaining momentum. "My best fundraising week was last week," the former governor and congressman from Louisiana tells Slate's Dave Weigel. "I raised enough money to buy a ticket to one of Obama's fundraisers."

Ace of Spades: "Bill Keller Of The NY Times Wants His Readers To Know Most Of The GOP Candidates Are Crazy Religious Nuts"

Peter Beinart has a doozy of a column up over at the Daily Beast, rather breathlessly titled, "Why Norway Could Happen Here." Since I suspect that Beinart managed to repeat every left-wing myth about the violent tendencies of Christians and conservatives, let's take a look at the key paragraph:

Winning the sweepstakes for the most hysterical piece of political journalism in recently is no mean feat, but I think Joshua Green at The Atlantic might have done it:

A liberal group has grabbed a number of headlines in the past week by attacking Paul Ryan's budget plan as un-Christian. The group claims that Ryan's a devotee of the atheist Ayn Rand, whose values are explicitly anti-Christian, and that this is the real inspiration for Ryan's budget:

From the New York Times article announcing that Jill Abramson is replacing Bill Keller as the paper's executive editor:

Good and Bad Ways to Think About Religion and Politics by Robert Benne Eerdmans, 128 pp., $14

"U.S., allies see Libyan rebels in hopeless disarray"

This has got to be a metaphor for something, right?

Over the last several years the old religious right reputedly has been melting down, with younger, more liberal evangelicals in the ascendency. But exit polling from the 2010 midterm election indicate no major political shift among evangelical or Protestant voters.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. 

For nearly 30 years Richard Cizik represented the National Association of Evangelicals in Washington, D.C. During the George W. Bush administration, he tilted increasingly left and embraced global warming as his iconic issue. A Vanity Fair magazine spread admiringly portrayed him walking on water,…