Producer's Desk — religion

• Sotomayor Supported Censoring Biblical Verse on Homosexuality from New York City Billboard - CNS News
• Executive Summary on Sotomayor from the ERLC
  • Sotomayor Fact Sheet
• Is There Hope for the American Marriage? - Time Mag
• Mapping America Project
• Is Christianity in the U.S. doomed? by Marvin Olasky
• Ready to Compete - Olasky interviews John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge
  • God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World by Micklethwait and Wooldridge
• ANALYSIS: God is not dead and neither is Christianity in America - by Will Hall
• ANALYSIS: What do the numbers mean — is the SBC in decline? Part 1 -by Will Hall
• ANALYSIS: What do the numbers mean — is the SBC in decline? Part 2 - by Will Hall
• ANALYSIS: Are evangelicals fractured & losing influence in the public square? - by Will Hall

Health Care

• Free Our Health Care Petition
• Guest bio: John Goodman

Church & State

• Guest: Erwin Lutzer’s website
• Book: Is God on America’s Side?: The Surprising Answer and How It Affects Our Future - Erwin Lutzer
• Hitlers Cross - Erwin Lutzer
• Slandering Jesus: Six Lies People Tell about the Man Who Said He Was God - Erwin Lutzer
• Is God on America’s Side? audio interview CD - For Faith & Family

From 1994: 5500+ Words on why the killing of abortion providers is unbiblical, unchristian and un-American. (Also available in PDF 324 KB)

Related current articles:

• On the Murder of Dr. George Tiller - Richard Land
• SBC spokesman disavows statements by former second VP - ABP

“[Wiley] Drake said June 2 on “The Alan Colmes Show” that he is praying “imprecatory prayer” — reciting as prayer Psalms containing curses or prayers for punishment on enemies of the psalmist — against President Obama… [Sing] Oldham told Associated Baptist Press that Drake is not a spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention and his comments do not reflect the actions, resolutions or positions of the denomination.”

• RELATED - Washington Post

“Wiley Drake is far out of the mainstream, in fact he’s in a drainage ditch somewhere,” Land said.

This interview with Richard Land from Dan Gilgoff of U.S. News and World Report:

Interview: Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land on Obama Transition Team’s Religious Outreach Offensive

“For my story today on the Obama transition team reaching out actively to religious groups as it crafts a policy agenda and prepares to set up its own version of the Bush White House’s Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives, I wanted to know if conservative religious groups were receiving the same red-carpet treatment as their faith-based counterparts on the left. So, I called Richard Land, president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest evangelical denomination. Here’s our interview…”

Read the complete interview…

As a former Newsweek reader, I am grieved by the blatant non-journalism that the (now-former) periodical ran as it’s cover story this week.

During the course of an ‘AP’ history class in high school (Morgantown High-WV, circa mid-90’s, Go Mohigans!), our teacher (Mr. Field) would pass out the latest Newsweek, every week. As students our task was to read any single article of our choosing and write a response. The guidelines were fairly loose… a minimum word count, the style left up to us.

I’ve longed credited this experience with triggering my own interest in current events, politics, and the like. I find it sad that Newsweek is now (and has been) one of the last sources I seek out to read, learn, and form opinions about any given subject. I wonder if Mr. Fields still hands out Newsweek or if he’s opted for a periodical still run by journalists.

I’m not the only one scratching my head:

Steve Waldman, Beliefnet.com:

• Gay Marriage & Newsweek’s Hail Mary

“This cover may ultimately become known less for its significance in the culture wars but as a watershed in the history of American journalism.” - Waldman

GetReligion.org

Mollie Hemingway:

• Sola scriptura minus the scriptura

“[Lisa Miller] never once speaks with an actual opponent of same-sex marriage. She never once speaks with someone who knows anything about the Biblical model of marriage as understood for thousands of years. This piece is disgusting, unfair and unworthy of a high school graduate. It is the opposite of thought-provoking. It’s a post-frontal lobotomy exegesis of Scripture. This is journalism? This is how people are supposed to cover the news, today?” - Hemingway

• What’s the standard?
• Picking sources for stories
• Newsweek vs. subscribers

Terry Mattingly:

• Embracing straw people at nonNewsweek

“Dear Newsweek, … I already take and read The New Republic. I read a variety of liberal Protestant websites and wire services. It’s amazing to see that your publication intends to take a less journalistic approach to religion news than, let’s say, The Christian Century. I have read Newsweek for many, many years. Should I continue to do so?” - Mattingly

Christianity Today

• Looking for a ‘Serious’ Conversation

“When a writer of Meacham’s stature sweepingly dismisses the history, tradition, ethics, and biblical theology of Christians who have taught and now argue that marriage is, by God’s design, a commitment of a man and a woman—well, you know he has pretty much conceded that he’s run out of arguments.” - CT editors

• Religious Practice in America - Heritage.org
• Hollywood’s Nixon - McKinnon, Wash. Times
• The five best things he ever did - Allen C. Guelzo, National Post
• ‘At Least Bush Kept Us Safe’ - Peggy Noonan, WSJ
• Survey of teens reveals entrenched habits of dishonesty - Josephson Institute
• Report: TV, Internet harm kids - USA Today
• McCain Couldn’t Compete With Obama’s Money - Karl Rove
• Scapegoating the Social Right - Ramesh Ponnuru
• GOP’s path to victory still goes through God - Rod Dreher

My latest post to [On Faith], a blog hosted by Newsweek and the Washington Times…

“If the President is a man of faith, then I believe he should follow the precepts of that faith. In President-elect Obama’s case, as a professing Christian, he should worship with other Christians on a regular basis. The New Testament’s Epistle to the Hebrews admonishes Christians to not forsake “the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another” (Heb. 10:25).”

Read the complete column…

” The new evangelicals, just in case anyone missed the storyline, were not so backward as to vote on issues like abortion and gay marriage. They were enlightened about the environment and favored government aid to the poor.

Well, whoever these new evangelicals were, they didn’t show up at the polls on Tuesday.” - Naomi Schaefer Riley

My post at Casting Stones:

“In preparation for a speech on religion and public policy, I was recently reviewing sections of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s The Mighty and the Almighty (2006).

Secretary Albright makes some truly important points in her volume. The whole effort is tremendously enhanced, however, by her startling transparency in acknowledging that she and most of the people in the diplomatic classes had completely underestimated the importance of religion as a potent force in societies around the world.”

Read the complete post…

The full conversation is about 47 minutes in duration. Visit the Bloggingheads.tv post to view short, individual clips.

This conversation was recorded on Sept 3, 2008 and posted online on Sept 8, 2008.