Monthly Archives: February 2008
Go Figure
By Mark Silk — February 26, 2008
A week ago, SurveyUSA showed Clinton winning regular worship attenders in Texas and Obama winning those who attend little or not at all. Now the same pollster shows their positions reversed. In both cases by healthy margins. So the more Texans see of the two candidates, the more the pious like Barack and the more […]
Tejanos
By Mark Silk — February 26, 2008
There’s evidence that Obama is gaining some ground among Hispanics in Texas. A few days ago, CNN’s polling director Keating Holland, commenting on a survey showing a dead heat in Texas, said he thought Clinton might well receive two-thirds of the Hispanic vote there. Yesterday’s SurveyUSA poll, showing Obama up by four points, had him […]
Canvasing in DC
By Mark Silk — February 26, 2008
From Nikita Stewart’s nice profile of Huckabee staffer Brian Summers in today’s WaPo: “I went to churches. I went to Bible study groups. I didn’t go in selling the Republican Party. I came in and sold a candidate,” said Summers, who targeted wards 7 and 8 in Southeast Washington, where he hoped to strike a […]
RNS Daily Digest
By RNS Blog Editor — February 26, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service SMU agrees to house Bush library (RNS) Southern Methodist University has formally agreed to house the George W. Bush presidential library, museum and public policy institute on its Dallas campus, despite objections from liberal United Methodists. Trustees at the United Methodist-related university voted unanimously to green light an agreement with […]
RNS Daily Digest
By Lilly Fowler — February 26, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Americans who aren’t part of a religious organization or who identify as an atheist or an agnostic represent the biggest change among U.S. religious groups, according to a study released Monday (Feb. 25) by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimates that […]
SIDEBAR: Protestants close to losing majority status
By Ashbel S. (Tony) Green — February 26, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The United States is firmly 78 percent Christian but barely 51 percent Protestant, according to a survey released Monday (Feb. 25). The findings, part of the sweeping U.S. Religious Landscape Survey produced by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, reaffirm a decades-long decline toward minority status for […]
SIDEBAR: Protestants close to losing majority status
By RNS Blog Editor — February 26, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) A new detailed study of American religion reveals not just a diversity of faiths, but also a range of racial and ethnic membership within those faiths. Of the country’s estimated 1.6 million adult Buddhists, for example, only one-third are Asian _ despite the religion’s roots in Asia _ while […]
SIDEBAR: Protestants close to losing majority status
By Adelle M. Banks — February 26, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) If you’re Buddhist in the United States, you’re most likely a white convert who lives in the American West. If you’re a Jehovah’s Witness, you’re likely to be a white Southerner, but almost half of your fellow believers are either African-American or Hispanic. And if you’re a Midwesterner, you’re […]
SIDEBAR: Catholics lose more faithful than any other group
By Gregory Trotter — February 26, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In the marketplace of American faith, Catholicism is the big loser. Catholics have lost more members to other faiths, or to no faith at all, than any other U.S. religion, according to the new survey released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The survey, based on […]
SIDEBAR: Catholics lose more faithful than any other group
By Andrea Useem — February 26, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In a study that highlights the fluidity of religious affiliation in America today, Hindus stand out as the group with the most stable religious identity, while Buddhists struggle hardest to pass the faith from one generation to the next. Ninety percent of Hindus marry within their own faith, and […]
Post’s Op-Ed Section Delves Into Religion, Politics
By Adelle M. Banks — February 26, 2008
Sunday’s Washington Post had a package of stories on faith and politics that looked at it from the left and the right, and from the perspective of Hispanics to potentially hell-bound voters. Amy Sullivan, nation editor at Time magazine, wrote about being a liberal evangelical – a non-non sequitur, she says. Beliefnet.com’s Washington editor David […]
In Gay Debate, Church Opts For No Family Photos in Directory
By Adelle M. Banks — February 26, 2008
A Fort Worth, Texas, church has decided not to feature family portraits in its 125th anniversary church directory to attempt to end a debate over whether gay members’ photos could be included. Broadway Baptist Church voted 294-182 Sunday, approving a recommendation by the church’s board of deacons, The Dallas Morning News reported. “This has been […]
The Vatican on the Oscars
By Francis X. Rocca — February 25, 2008
In the latest sign that the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano has become more lively and wide-ranging under its new editor, Giovanni Maria Vian, Tuesday’s edition carries a reflection on last night’s Academy Awards. “Hollywood has been struck this year by gloomy films, soaked in violence and above all lacking in hope,” writes Gaetano Vallini, […]
Evangelical Democrats!?
By rvineis — February 25, 2008
Amy Sullivan dispels the myth that all evangelicals aren’t liberals in her column for the Washington Post. Sullivan delves into why Republican have held a monopoly on the faithful and how this is beginning to change.
Return of the Romneys
By rvineis — February 25, 2008
Mitt Romney’s son, Josh, told the Desert Morning News today that he is considering running for Congress. More interesting is his belief that Mormonism cost his father a win in Iowa. Josh Romney said “When it’s religion, you definitely take it personally. It’s highly offensive, but I think that the vast majority of people we […]
