One of the nastiest campaign tricks in recent memory was the Louisiana Democratic Party’s attempt to derail the candidacy of Roman Catholic Bobby Jindal by quoting — out of context — statements he’d written about Protestantism. The thing I remember about the attacks is that Jindal seemed surprisingly theologically literate for a politician. Jindal explained his adult conversion from Hinduism in the New Oxford Review and the Democratic Party quoted some of it to give the impression that Jindal was a bigot. I know it’s Louisiana and all, but that’s cold.
Where are the unchurched going?
Good for USA Today‘s By Cathy Lynn Grossman for writing about an important survey from the Southern Baptist Convention’s LifeWay Research group that showed that people who do not go to church are finding religion elsewhere. Not many mainstream news organizations picked this one up, but it is significant and worth a closer look than what is possible the day after the numbers are released.
Political reporters ignore Catholics
While reading the voting breakdown of the New Hampshire primary, I noticed two trends among Catholics. One trend was that Hillary Clinton won a large plurality (44 percent) of those Catholics who voted in the Democratic primary. The other trend was that Mike Huckabee underperformed among those Catholics who voted in the Republican primary; he got 7 percent of the Catholic vote, compared to 11 percent overall.
What is it about Mormonism?
Last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine had an article analyzing the Mormon religion and arguing for voters choosing a president without regard to his or her religion. “What is it about Mormonism” was written by Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor and adjunct senior fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations.
Cue the theme from Jaws -- for real
I will offer no comments at all. I assume there will be more than enough commentary over at Poynter.org on this one.
LeBlanc-ian thoughts on Obama option
This isn’t religion news, really, but there’s a post floating around right now about religion, politics and Barack Obama that is getting some unique attention. It touches on topics that are affecting the political decisions of serious Christian believers, left and right. And journalists, too.
Shameless self promotion (Rockies division)
Farewell to Christmas 2007
I have to admit that I opened up the Washington Post snark section today and my little Christmas-loving heart took a leap. There I saw a news feature by reporter Monica Hesse that began like this:
