In his ill-chosen remarks to an April 6, 2008 San Francisco fundraiser, Barack Obama showed the danger bad social science…
Obama’s reductionist moment
Religion and the 2008 election
During the campaigning leading up to the 2008 election, scholars reflect on the role of religion in American politics.
A progressive evangelical movement?
When people hear the words "progressive" and "evangelical" together, a sort of cognitive dissonance occurs. Meshing the notions of Jerry…
Obama, Wright, and Trinity
The East Coast media establishment---both "conservatives" and "liberals"---continue to ask the same question about Senator Barack Obama: why did he…
The preacher and the politician
The recent formal departure of Senator Barack Obama from Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago will no doubt resurface…
The Dobson/Obama Rorschach test
For years Barack Obama has courted the support of evangelicals. Way back in 2006, Obama served as the keynote speaker…
How now, creationist?
I had a college teacher certain he had found the solution to the problem of creationists, and, at the time,…
Talking right, stumbling left
Sarah Palin's popularity and notoriety has many sources, but one source of her Red America popularity has not been sufficiently…
Perplexed by Pentecostalism
Lost in the discussion of Sarah Palin's religion is an appreciation for the diversity of American Pentecostalism, past and present.
What does Azusa have to do with Washington?
Does a candidate's faith matter? That seems to be one of the more pressing questions being asked in opinion pieces…
A tale of two mavericks
Long before field dressing moose and shooting wolves from helicopters became part of American political parlance, a United States senator…