Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

[Newsweek] Obama says his spiritual quest was driven by two main impulses. He was looking for a community that he could call home—a sense of rootedness and belonging he missed from his biracial, peripatetic childhood. The visits to the black churches uptown helped fulfill that desire. "There's a side very particular to the African-American church tradition that was powerful to me," he says. The exuberant worship, the family atmosphere and the prophetic preaching at a church such as Abyssinian would have appealed to ... Read More

[NY Times]   Bill Keller, an evangelist based in Florida, runs “Liveprayer.com,” an Internet call-in program. Because he receives a government tax exemption, he is prohibited by law from endorsing or opposing candidates for public office. But during the Republican primary battle, Mr. Keller proclaimed to his followers and the news media that “a vote for Mitt Romney is a vote for Satan.” Now Mr. Keller says he is being investigated by the Internal Revenue Service for involvement in partisan politics. He asserts that his denunciations of ... Read More

I was a Public Administration major in college.  I was active in politics and seriously thought that I might enter the political realm.  I've always voted conservatively but not always Republican.  I once voted for Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama.  He has since changed parties and is now a Republican.  I loved Ronald Regan.  I was disappointed with Pres. Bush #1 and Pres. Clinton has much different values than me.  Pres. Bush # 2 appears to be serious about his faith but ... Read More

[Yahoo] When Sen. John McCain was forced to distance himself from Pastor John Hagee earlier this year, he denounced the pastor's attacks on Catholicism. But asked why he wouldn't "repudiate" Hagee's endorsement of him, McCain found something to praise.   I'm grateful for his commitment to the support of the state of Israel, and I'm very grateful for many of his commitments around the world, including to the independence and freedom of the state of Israel," he told CNN's Campbell Brown on April 29. Hagee's commitment to Israel, however, is itself controversial: It's ... Read More

[CNN] Conservative Christian leaders who believe the word "evangelical" has lost its religious meaning plan to release a starkly self-critical document saying the movement has become too political and has diminished the Gospel through its approach to the culture wars. The statement, called "An Evangelical Manifesto," condemns Christians on the right and left for using faith to express political views without regard to the truth of the Bible, according to a draft of the document obtained Friday by The Associated Press. "That way faith loses ... Read More