Few topics are as fraught and complicated, or as tempting to oversimplify, as the encounter between religion and state. Take Israel. The balance of religion and state seems to be particularly imperiled for a variety of cultural and political reasons. Some Israelis think the problem has to do with an increase in religious commitment itself….
Pennsylvania, it’s sometimes said, can best be understood as Philadelphia and Pittsburgh separated by Alabama. Geographically speaking it’s a big state in the heart of the liberal Northeast, home to great universities, Ben Franklin and the Liberty Bell, anchored by a great Eastern metropolis at one end and a once-booming Midwestern steel town at the…
In their fight to pass legislation allowing military chaplains to offer sectarian prayers at public services, conservative congressional leaders have lost an erstwhile ally: the Orthodox Union. The O.U., an organization that represents about 1,000 congregations and often joins Christian conservatives in their fight to lower the wall separating church and state, has weighed in…
In an attempt to woo religious voters, Tennessee’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate has filmed a campaign commercial in his childhood church, with a large white cross looming over his right shoulder. “I started in the church the old-fashioned way… I was forced to,” said Rep. Harold Ford Jr., sitting in a glossy wooden…
WASHINGTON — As congressional Republicans press a series of legislative initiatives aimed at mobilizing religious conservative voters, Jewish organizations are fighting two of the measures that they say would further erode the wall separating church and state. The first measure being opposed by Jewish organizations would ease the limitations on sectarian prayers by military chaplains….
An activist leading the charge against the influence of evangelical Christians in America’s military is sizzling up his latest fundraising gala with some heavy-hitting Washington star power. Mikey Weinstein, an Air Force veteran turned church-state gadfly, has signed up Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame to headline a soiree he is set to throw September 9…
Democrats are hoping to swing several tightly contested congressional races by seizing on controversial comments made by Rep. Katherine Harris, best known for her role during the 2000 recount in Florida. Harris, who as Florida’s secretary of state was hailed by conservatives and reviled by liberals for her efforts to certify then-Texas Governor George W….
With Democrats threatening to take back Congress in November, Christian conservative leader James Dobson has launched a multifaceted campaign to mobilize religious voters in eight battleground states. The effort, coordinated by Dobson’s Colorado-based group, Focus on the Family, will include church-based voter registration and education drives aimed at combating “voter apathy” and encouraging “Christians to…
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