WednesdayâÂ?Â?s Religion News Roundup: Bible Belts Romney, Roy Moore is back, Tony Blair on gay marriage

The Bible Belt walloped Mitt Romney, who finished third in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries. Rick Santorum won again, thanks largely to evangelicals and moral conservatives, and Newt Gingrich is a zombie candidate but doesn’t seem to know it. Alabama breakdown here, and Mississippi here. Tweet of the Night: “Catholic Republican wins the Cotton South. […]

The Bible Belt walloped Mitt Romney, who finished third in the Alabama and Mississippi primaries. Rick Santorum won again, thanks largely to evangelicals and moral conservatives, and Newt Gingrich is a zombie candidate but doesn’t seem to know it.

Alabama breakdown here, and Mississippi here.

Tweet of the Night: “Catholic Republican wins the Cotton South. – Sci-Fi headlines from 1948” (Brendan Michael Dougherty, via Dreher)


So conventional wisdom says it’s a two-man race, and religion – specifically the Religious Right – is playing a bigger role than many expected.

Conventional wisdom would have said former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore was history a decade ago when he was forced from office over his refusal to remove a huge Ten Commandments display from the state courthouse. But he appears to have won the GOP primary too, paving the way for his return in glory…(He rode to the polls yesterday on a horse.)

Barack Obama, Niebuhrian progressive. (That’s the opposite of Rick Santorum.)

Doing well by doing good? David Cerullo, head of Inspiration Networks, a nonprofit Christian broadcaster based near Charlotte, earned nearly $2.5 million in total compensation in 2010, a 47 percent increase since 2008. What recession?

What a resignation: A top Goldman Sachs executive quits via an Op-Ed in the New York Times (that’ll usually do it) and blasts one of the world’s leading investment banks for its ethical lapses: “Weed out the morally bankrupt people, no matter how much money they make for the firm,” Greg Smith advised his now former employer.

Are Syria’s Christians siding with Assad out of fear of fundamentalist Muslims who might fill the void? Robert Wright on “The Emerging Neocon-Christian Split Over Syria.”

Former UK PM Tony Blair, a prominent convert to Catholicism after leaving office, comes out as a strong supporter of gay marriage. The Vatican is not happy.

Finally, Catholic art in the City of Angels, from Fabian Debora, via the Jesuit Post. (H/T: America)


— David Gibson

Photo credit: “Mi Madre de Los Angeles,” Fabian Debora

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