FridayâÂ?Â?s Religion News Roundup: NASCAR Christians? Nikki HaleyâÂ?Â?s faith, Colton DixonâÂ?Â?s âÂ?Â?Idol,âÂ? pet shiva

Remember “NASCAR Dads”? Ralph Reed is trolling for NASCAR Christians, as his Faith & Freedom Coalition is sponsoring a car in tomorrow’s NASCAR Sprint Cup series race in Richmond. “There are an estimated 75 million NASCAR fans, many of whom live in battleground states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. This vote has significant overlap […]

Remember “NASCAR Dads”? Ralph Reed is trolling for NASCAR Christians, as his Faith & Freedom Coalition is sponsoring a car in tomorrow’s NASCAR Sprint Cup series race in Richmond.

“There are an estimated 75 million NASCAR fans, many of whom live in battleground states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. This vote has significant overlap with the evangelical and Tea Party vote,” Reed says. “An estimated 20 percent of NASCAR fans are not registered to vote. They tend to be pro-family, patriotic, and conservative in their values.”

Ralph says it’s a first for a group like his. Sign of the times?


South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley wants to talk about her Christian faith, and conversion from Sikhism, but doesn’t go into details she doesn’t want to go into. (And no Veep job for her, she says – not even a cabinet position!)

Haley may not need that mobile app for Sikhs to report profiling, but she feels the pain of her former co-religionists, who include her parents.

Paul Ryan went into the lion’s den and defended his “Catholic” budget, which turns out not to be so Catholic after all.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em: Mitt Romney hires Rick Santorum’s former campaign manager with the aim of bringing social conservatives to Romney’s side.

If you can’t beat ‘em, make them green with envy: Colton Dixon was a surprise loser on “American Idol” but the Christian Broadcasting Network is inviting him to the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend.

“His heart is in Christianity and his strong feeling for God. As soon as he was voted off, I sent an email saying we should try to get Colton to be our guest if he would,” CBN news director Rob Allman told the “Today” show.

What some folks won’t do to hang with journalists…

Christians pick their favorite fantasy land.

A Tennessee high school student snagged a $1,000 scholarship from an atheist group for dressing like Jesus Christ on the school's “fictional character day.” What student loan crisis? If every sophomore gets a scholarship for trying to get attention then higher education will be free!


Speaking of adolescents, Florida pastor Terry Jones is at it again.

Southern Baptist seminary president Al Mohler says his fellow believers need to take a look in the mirror if they want to battle gay marriage: “We have to understand that where we have fallen short of biblical fidelity on marriage, we have no credibility to say that we’re going to address marriage now because some kind of fire break has appeared,” Mohler said.

Sit shiva for your dog? What to do as a Jew when Spot dies.

Finally, Iowa priest, Fr. Everett Hemann, who made his inexorable pilgrimage to death from cancer a year of public witness, has died.

David Gibson

Photo credit: NASCAR via the FF Coalition and Colton Dixon via “The Clicker”

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