Evangelicals

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Keeping women in their place

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In the early days after the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for the Republican ticket, the mainstream media ran quite a few stories wondering whether a female candidate with children should really be in such a position of authority and responsibility. Now they’ve decided to try really hard to get religious adherents to carry their water. The Associated Press chose one denomination — out of the many and various Christian groups that retain the traditional male-only clergy — to frame a story about whether females should be in secular power:


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Religious caricature double standard?

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Just as Young Man Pulliam said last week, Deborah Howell devoted her most recent ombudsman column to the controversy over Pat Oliphant’s anti-Pentecostal cartoon that was published on WashingtonPost.com. Howell had noted in an earlier column that readers were right to complain over the cartoon. This weekend, she ran a lengthier piece about political cartooning in general.


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Misrepresenting Christians and torture

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Last month, Catholic writer and blogger Eve Tushnet urged us to write more about coverage of the religious debate over the Bush administration’s policies regarding torture. For weeks, I looked in vain for the press’ treatment of the issue, which has fallen into eclipse. But then evangelicals inaugurated an annual conference about torture and the neo-conservative publication The Weekly Standard wrote about it. Now I had something to write about.


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Looking for religion at the debate

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Few things excite me more than a good presidential debate. Tonight I’ll be live blogging certain aspects of the first debate between the Democratic Candidate Barack Obama and the Republican Candidate John McCain. While it is supposed to focus on foreign policy (and no doubt the economy will be something of a topic), my focus will be on any religious aspects that may come up. Other items are fair game for comment of course.


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Policing prayer

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Six of 17 chaplains Virginia State Police chaplains have resigned because of new restrictions on prayer. The state police superintendent ordered them to offer only non-denominational prayers at public events. All stories about movement on First Amendment protections are big and the Washington-area papers made sure to cover it.


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