Note: Today is the federal observance of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. This blog post is a re-publication on an item that originally appeared on Jan. 13, 2006.

Today marks the federal observance of Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. Since his tragic assassination on April 4, 1968, King’s memory has been pressed into service in highly unusual ways that King […] Read More

It’s 11 days until Christmas and as each day goes by, we continue to hear more “War on Christmas” rants from the Religious Right.

The latest comes out of Alvarado, Texas, where a pastor plans to put on a production called “A Politically Correct Christmas.”

Pastor Rick Hope of the First Baptist Church of Lillian told the Alvarado Post […] Read More

Here’s some news you might have missed in the holiday shuffle last week: Wiley Drake, pastor of the First Southern Baptist Church in Buena Park, Calif., and former vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has issued a press release calling for the end to an “imprecatory prayer” for President Barack Obama’s death.

No, Drake was not overcome with […] Read More

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the Religious Right. Through my work at Americans United, I’ve opposed this movement for 22 years and have written three books challenging the Religious Right’s perspective.

I don’t believe that everyone who holds Religious Right views is a bad person. But I would be remiss in my duties if I failed […] Read More

When political pundits talk about the power of religious groups to affect public policy in Washington, most tend to focus on the Religious Right.

Indeed, during the presidency of George W. Bush, Religious Right groups flexed a lot of political muscle and won numerous victories on Capitol Hill.

But the Religious Right has an Achilles’ heel: Its leaders and activists […] Read More

Jerry Falwell Jr. seems well on his way toward setting up his own little fundamentalist theocracy in Lynchburg, Va.

Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University, has been working for months to forge students at his school into a voting bloc that will control local elections. According to the Lynchburg News & Advance, as many as 1,700 LU students registered to […] Read More

James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family (FOF), is not a happy camper these days.

“What is happening in Washington right now is my greatest nightmare,” Dobson said during a recent radio broadcast. He opined that everything he has worked on for 25 years is “coming apart…. It’s unbelievable what’s taking place.”

In separate remarks while accepting an award […] Read More

A few months ago, it seemed Focus on the Family may have been coming around to – dare I say it? – a refreshingly moderate outlook.

Jim Daly recently took over president and chief executive responsibilities from James Dobson, the founder of the Religious Right outfit.

Back in June, while visiting Washington to participate in President Barack Obama’s White House […] Read More

By now, many of you have heard about the preacher in Tempe, Ariz., who is praying for the death of President Barack Obama.

Thanks to You Tube, Pastor Steven L. Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church has become kind of famous. Anderson’s recent “Why I Hate Barack Obama” sermon has attracted wide attention.

The night before an Obama speech in […] Read More

Is America on the verge of a holy war?

One writer seems to think so. In a provocative Esquire article, John H. Richardson detects an increasingly radical – and potentially violent – stream of religious-political activism afoot in the United States.

Says Richardson, “Over the last few years, it has become increasingly clear to me that what we are […] Read More