Faith and Values

• Faith & Values: Whose God is for McCain?

  It was  one of those jaw-dropping moments in a campaign season filled with them. A retired pastor, Arnold Conrad, gave the invocation at a rally for John McCain in Davenport, Iowa last Saturday. A simplified version of what he said: God, you better help McCain win or else it will look like the gods [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: October 14, 2008, 8:40am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Keep endorsements out of the pulpit

  Remember in the fall of 2006 when Bishop Robert Morlino, leader of the Catholic Diocese of Madison, ordered all of his priests to play a taped message from him supporting the state constitutional amendment banning legal recognition of same-sex partnerships? A lot of Catholics were outraged. Some left their parishes. Others in the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 26, 2008, 9:43am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Resouces on religion and politics

  As the chatter about the role of religion in the 2008 presidential campaign keeps churning along, here are a number of sites that I have found useful for gaining perspective on the conversations: Resources on Faith & Politics God-o-Meter The God-o-Meter® scientifically measures factors such as rate of God-talk, effectiveness-saying [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 18, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Rays of hope for journalism

  One of the most notable characteristics of gatherings of journalists these days is the pervasive sense of sadness about the disintegration of the old ways of the news business and fear about its future. Changes in the ways Americans get their news, the wide variety of alternatives and the collapse of the economic [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 12, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Tread carefully on Palin's beliefs

  As the intensity of coverage of Sarah Palin's religious life grows, I have a little bit of sense of being thrown back into that period last spring when there was a feeding frenzy around a few of the sermons by Barack Obama's then pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. What the public saw were a [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 10, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: McCain, Palin and their beliefs

  With the emergence of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin onto the scene as the newest political superstar, the religious viewpoints of candidates are once again getting attention. Last spring, an awful lot of airtime and ink was devoted to the beliefs of Barack Obama and his association with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his pastor at [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: September 06, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Meeting Jesus (and Christians) on the road

  Two years ago, Eric Elnes and a small group of progressive Christians set out from Phoenix, Ariz., walking to Washington, D.C. to see what place their style of Christianity might have in a nation that seemed to view their religion as sort of an adjunct of conservative politics. What they found along the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 20, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: The fuzzy line for life

  I was disappointed in Barack Obama's answer Saturday night when Pastor Rick Warren asked him during their televised conversation at Saddleback Church, "At what point does a baby get human life, in your view?" Obama dodged the core question with a flip reply that "Whether you're looking at it from a [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 18, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Cycling for a cause

  If you are driving around Madison this weekend, you may well see a couple of long lines of cyclists peddling through the city. Today (Saturday), about 150 bikers came into Madison as part of a cross-country bike tour raising money to break the cycle of global  poverty. On Sunday afternoon, another 150 riders [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 09, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Evangelicals out of the box

  I heard Rick Warren talking on National Public Radio the other day. Warren is the author of the mega-best seller, The Purpose Driven Life, the founder and pastor of the 22,000-member of Saddleback Community Church in southern California and soon will host the first joint appearance of Barack Obama and [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: August 06, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Hate, violence come too close

  I was with about 175 young people and adults from Wisconsin Sunday morning in Knoxville, only a few miles from where a man opened fire on the congregation of a Unitarian church, killing two of them, wounding six others. (See the Knoxville News-Sentinel for details.) While this horror was playing out about [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 29, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Madison as a tossed salad

  Scenes from a summer Saturday in Madison and environs: It's morning around the State Capitol -- you know, that place where laws are made, where justices make big decisions, where the governor does his executive thing. But outside, it's just folks, all sorts of folks -- ages, colors, languages. It's Farmers' Market Day. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 19, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Coming up through July

  I'd like to offer regular previews of area events that reflect the theme of this blog -- how faith and values intersect with the public arena. If you have something you'd like me to consider including, please email me at phaslanger@gmail.com  These should be things for the general public, not events aimed just at your [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 19, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: No need to listen?

  I was listening to Rush Limbaugh today when a caller suggested that the king of talk radio depart from his normal reluctance to have guests on the show and invite "Barack Hussein Obama" onto the show so Obama could say whatever he wanted as long as he agreed to answer questions from Rush. [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 16, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Seeking Obama's soul

  Week after week, the search for who Barack Obama really is, what he really believes, goes on.  This week, you can find a serious, in-depth exploration of his religious beliefs in the Newsweek cover story and a satirical look at the underground campaign labeling him a secret Muslim in the cover art [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: July 15, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Obama wrong to dodge Muslims

  It's not enough that Barack Obama is having trouble with conservative Christians who either think he is not really Christian at all or that if he is, he is one of those liberal sort of Christians. Now he's also in hot water with America's Muslims. So much of this nation's anxiety over [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: June 26, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: The waters rise

  As June was just beginning, in those days just before the rain fell and the rivers rose and the levees broke and the floods poured through the Midwest, one of the scripture readings in many churches was the familiar story of Noah and the ark, the story of God destroying most of creation and [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: June 26, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: What makes a good father?

  Now that the new ties have been folded and put away, the cards are taped to the wall for the next few weeks and the last "Happy Father's Day" has been spoken, we are left with a couple of extraordinarily important images from Father's Day 2008. Interestingly enough, they come from two [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: June 16, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Truth and deception

  Here's an eclectic collection of folks - British singer Amy Winehouse, her legally-impaired husband Blake Fielder-Civil, former President Bill Clinton, presidential hopeful Barack Obama and Huffington Post blogger Mayhill Fowler. What they all have in common is being in the midst of an ethical debate with multiple layers. How OK is it for [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: June 10, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Not easy to talk about race

  Rev. Wanda Washington says it is not easy for her to have what her denomination calls "a sacred conversation on race." She is African-American. She is a pastor of Grace United Church of Christ, a relatively new and predominatly African-American church in Milwaukee. She is a product of Trinity United Church of [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: June 04, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Religious symbols as battering rams

  An American soldier near Baghdad uses a Quran for target practice. A Marine guarding a checkpoint at the edge of Falluja gives Iraquis entering the city coins with a Bible verse in Arabic. In the Israeli city of Or-Yehuda, near Tel Aviv, a [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: June 03, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Preaching gone astray

  I know Rev. Jeremiah Wright has become emblematic of problematic preachers, but actually, I think a lot of what has gotten him in hot water has been well within the traditions of prophetic preaching. (See the column I wrote on this last March.) I'm a lot less sympathetic to the [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: May 30, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Getting to values in public debate

  A new and perhaps surprising voice has joined the chorus calling for a more explicit role for moral values in debates over public issues. This is not a call for playing religion as a trump card to shut down debate. Rather, it's a call to recognize that underneath most of our public controversies [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: May 27, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Pastors and politicians

  Pastors and politicians are making life hard for each other once again, making the point along the way that when candidates seek endorsements from religious leaders and religious leaders start flinging around their pastoral power in the political arena, things can take a very bad bounce. I'm referring, of course, to this week's [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Posted: May 25, 2008, 12:00am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Talking about race

  Barbara Lundblad might have asked for a show of hands from the 2,000 or so mostly white preachers sitting in front of her, but she was too polite to do that. The question was how many of them had used their sermon time this past Sunday to talk about the issues [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 20, 2008, 5:03pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Another church minefield for Obama

  Get ready for round two (or is it round six?) of the tarring of Barack Obama with his religious affiliations. The opening bell came on Thursday when the California Supreme Court overturned that state's ban on same-sex marriage. In round one, the focus was on Obama's ties to his outspoken pastor, Rev. Jeremiah [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 20, 2008, 5:03pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Solidarity across Israeli boundaries

  Two dramatic incidents in Elias Chacour's life provide neat bookends to his efforts to live out a different kind of reality in northern Israel. One involved inviting Muslims in his small community to use his Melkite Catholic church for worship. The other involved putting his life at risk when Hezbollah threated [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 20, 2008, 5:03pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Giving former prisoners hope

  In the opinion section of the Cap Times print publication for May 14, I have a column about a restorative justice program at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage. This program is part of the Prison Ministry Project run by Rev. Jerry Hancock through First Congregational United Church of Christ. While [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 20, 2008, 5:03pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: About that tax rebate

  Just as those long-promised tax rebate checks from the federal government are standing to land in people's mailboxes and bank accounts, voices are being raised in a number of area churches that maybe spending it on consumer goods is not the best way to help our society. The rebate -- billed as an [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 20, 2008, 5:03pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Another church minefield for Obama

  Get ready for round two (or is it round six?) of the tarring of Barack Obama with his religious affiliations. The opening bell came on Thursday when the California Supreme Court overturned that state's ban on same-sex marriage. In round one, the focus was on Obama's ties to his outspoken pastor, Rev. Jeremiah [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 16, 2008, 9:05am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Solidarity across Israeli boundaries

  Two dramatic incidents in Elias Chacour's life provide neat bookends to his efforts to live out a different kind of reality in northern Israel. One involved inviting Muslims in his small community to use his Melkite Catholic church for worship. The other involved putting his life at risk when Hezbollah threated [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 14, 2008, 10:35pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Giving former prisoners hope

  In the opinion section of the Cap Times print publication for May 14, I have a column about a restorative justice program at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage. This program is part of the Prison Ministry Project run by Rev. Jerry Hancock through First Congregational United Church of Christ. While [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 14, 2008, 4:35pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: About that tax rebate

  Just as those long-promised tax rebate checks from the federal government are standing to land in people's mailboxes and bank accounts, voices are being raised in a number of area churches that maybe spending it on consumer goods is not the best way to help our society. The rebate -- billed as an [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 14, 2008, 4:35pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: A seeker finds a home

  Ingrid Mattson knows something about being a religious seeker. She knows it from her own story and from her work as a scholar. And her search has led her to an extraordinary place. Mattson was the final speaker at an extraordinary conference put on this week by the University [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 09, 2008, 9:33am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Faith - yes; fanatics - no

  When Bradley Hirschfield was just 17 years old, he entered the world of religious fanaticism. The Chicago-area native didn't just enter a Jewish seminary when he moved to Israel. Within a month, he had joined the settlement movement and became part of the hardest of the hard core settlers in the hotly-contested city [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 08, 2008, 11:07pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: The pace of death

  There's a new buzz word in medical circles -- "slow medicine." No, that doesn't refer to the time spent in the doctor's waiting room or what can seem like an interminable time for some procedure or other to happen in the hospital. Slow medicine, as described in a fascinating article in [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 06, 2008, 12:35pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Faith & Values: Creating hope in Bethlehem

  Mitri Raheb is a pastor of a small Lutheran congregation in Bethlehem, five miles south of Jerusalem, a world away from the Lutheran churches of south central Wisconsin. Yet on Friday morning, he was talking with a couple of hundred area Lutherans about the way things look from the Palestinian side [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 02, 2008, 5:37pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Preaching evolution

  In a place like Madison, where the concept of evolution is rarely challenged in schools or at the university, the appearance of Rev. Michael Dowd next week may seem like someone coming to town to preach to the choir. Dowd is on the road to promote his book, Thank God [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: May 01, 2008, 10:33am EDT
  by phaslanger

• A thoughtful look at Jeremiah Wright

  Well, Jeremiah Wright has been back in the news the past few days. He's a preacher who was the pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the church that Barack Obama attends. That's why Wright is in the news, of course. His provocative style of preaching is being used to create a [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: April 29, 2008, 7:06am EDT
  by phaslanger

• Conversation with Marcus Borg

  An article I wrote about Marcus Borg was based on a lengthy telephone interview with him on March 25. Here are extended sections of that conversation. One deals with his own spirituality, the second deals with the two visions of Christianity he sees at work in the United States and the third [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: April 23, 2008, 3:24pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Rev. Wright meets Bill Moyers

  Eugene Kane, a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, told a group of about 25 Madison-area journalists and community activists tonight that the most common description of him by his predominantly white readers is "that angry black guy in the newspaper." And so it has gone with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of Trinity United [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: April 23, 2008, 3:24pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Seeking truth in a culture of spin

  "If we live in a culture of spin, there is a good deal of suspicion about claims of truthfulness, so this is also a culture of suspicion." The words are from Miroslav Volf, theologian from Yale University talking a group of faculty and campus religious workers over lunch on Friday at [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: April 23, 2008, 3:24pm EDT
  by phaslanger

• Seeking peace while living lightly

  Jim Douglass had been telling students at Edgewood College about his life dedicated to living simply, serving the poor and getting in the way of wars. He said that a key to all of this is not to get too attached to one's wallet -- in other words, to the making and preservation [...]
  Share | Rate | Archive

  Fetched: April 23, 2008, 3:24pm EDT
  by phaslanger