People

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'Christian warrior'? Time to dig a bit ...

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We are, of course, living in the post-Anders Behring Breivik world, a world in which journalists will — for valid reasons — be digging into the faith connections of anyone who launches any kind of violent attack on Islamic institutions or who attacks anyone who is somehow related to the growth of Islam in the West.


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Bill Keller's modest proposal

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When I read Bill Keller’s bizarre piece in the New York Times yesterday morning, where he proposes a loaded religious quiz for potential candidates, I actually gasped. Considering I’ve been reading dozens of religion stories a day for years, it’s hard to surprise me. I’m not saying I haven’t heard these types of comments uttered against religious believers, be they Pagan or Mormon or Catholic. And there’s even a counter-Jihad movement that says similar things to what Keller has said, only about Muslims.


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CNN on porn: Smart people vs. Bible folks

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It seems that the comments pages at the CNN religion blog have been on fire for several days — with good reason. That’s what happens when you publish a feature about Christians hooked on pornography and you top it with a photo of a man reading a copy of Playboy hidden inside his Bible.


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Is Jon Huntsman a Jack Mormon?

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I wondered back in March whether or not the fact that we had two Mormons running for President would create an “LDSapalooza” in the news coverage. It hasn’t quite worked out that way, in part because Jon Huntsman is polling just above Pat Paulsen. Even though Romney is the nominal frontrunner in the GOP primary his faith was quite heavily covered in 2008, and this time around the media seems far more interested in covering — or ginning up — the controversies surrounding Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann. I bet Romney’s pretty happy about that.


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Rounding up Madrid's 'Popestock'

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I’m often amazed by anything that can get a million or so young people to do anything or gather anywhere in one location. The Roman Catholic Church managed to do that at World Youth Day (or, what Rocco Palmo calls “Popestock”), which concluded in Madrid yesterday.


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Evangelical royalty's game of thrones

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Frank Schaeffer has, as The Economist once put it, “made a career out of criticising his evangelical parents Francis and Edith Schaeffer.” While I and my people were not influenced by the Schaeffers, they’ve had a tremendous influence upon some of my favorite people (including GetReligion’s Douglas LeBlanc). They founded a Christian retreat center in Switzerland where many people transferred from fundamentalism to evangelicalism or to greater engagement with the culture, including secular culture. They are known for their apologetics and influence on a wide swath of people including everyone from Jesus People organizer Jack Sparks to musicians Larry Norman and Mark Heard. To say those parents were very well regarded among evangelicals, even by their evangelical critics, is an understatement.


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