Religion

In January, while conservative Christians and GOP presidential candidates were charging that "elites" have launched "a war against religion," a federal court in Rhode Island ordered a public school to remove a prayer mounted on a wall because it imposed a belief on 16-year-old Jessica Ahlquist. The ruling seems particularly fitting because it was consistent not only with the 1st Amendment but with the intent of Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island expressly to provide religious liberty and who called such forced exposure to prayer "spiritual rape.

WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner dismissed as "nonsense" a proposed GOP campaign attack on President Obama's past association with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., as well as a Democratic fundraising effort that followed.   "This kind of nonsense shouldn't happen," said Boehner on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos. " "The election is going to be about the economy and getting Americans back to work. And I think Gov. Romney's prescriptions are much better. "   The role of the harsh attack ads -- this one over the delicate topic of religion -- reared this week after the New York Times disclosed a proposal from conservative strategists to wage an ad blitz against Obama, linking him to the controversial remarks from Wright, his former pastor in Chicago.

Like everything Stephen Colbert does on television, it's set up as a joke. A nun and a television host walk into a studio. They discuss the recent papal censure of American nuns for "perpetrating a feminist agenda. " The host takes a hard line. "The pope has said, 'Knock it off with the social liberalism,'" he says. "You're not socially conservative enough, at least admit that. " "What I'll admit is that we're faithful to the Gospel," says the nun. "We work every day to live as Jesus did, in relationship to people at the margins of our society.

Like so many presidents before him, Barack Obama has invited a revered guest to his inauguration: God. Although the Constitution forbids the government from establishing religion, faith is once again figuring prominently into the nation's grandest political pageant, just as it has over the course of American history.

President Obama is trying to accommodate Catholic bishops on birth control, but at CPAC, Republican presidential candidates still ranted about his assault on religion. At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington on Friday, Newt Gingrich warned that Obama would “declare war” on the Catholic Church if he were reelected. Mitt Romney, who in recent days has been decrying Obama's “war on religion,” pledged that he would “reverse every single Obama regulation that attacks our religious liberty and threatens innocent human life in this country.” Rick Santorum said the proposed mandate requiring all employers, including religious organizations, to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives is the kind of coercion that threatens religious freedom.

It was fascinating to read the responses to “Letting Doubters in the Door,” my Sunday Op-Ed on the “nones”  -- those who answer "no religious affiliation" when asked by pollsters -- and a new open approach to religion and spirituality in the United States today.  The responses nicely mirror the two major reactions that those of us working in the "emerging church" are  seeing across the country, from more conservative or traditional...

TAMPA, Fla. -- As Mitt Romney prepares to give the biggest speech of his life Thursday evening, a new national poll suggests that one of his perceived political vulnerabilities - his Mormon faith - has receded as an issue. The opinion survey, by the Pew Research Center, asked Americans what one word came to mind when they heard Romney's name.  Last fall,  “Mormon” was the most frequent response when the independent polling operation asked that question. Today, it is the Romney descriptor that has changed the most.  Only eight out of 1,010 adults volunteered “Mormon,” compared with 60 in the 2011 survey.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday went to the nation's largest evangelical university to discuss his own feelings about religion and to urge students to get involved in the political process and not leave their futures to Washington officials. Perry went to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., a safe venue for a conservative Christian such as himself to talk about how he was inspired by religion. It was also a break from recent days when the front-runner in the GOP sweepstakes for the presidential nomination found himself under fire from fellow Republicans for his stands on Social Security and such cultural issues as Perry's move to require Texas girls to be vaccinated against the virus that causes cervical cancer.

Despite the increasing number of those who hold other faiths or no faith, Christians still wield substantial influence on our nation's cultural and ethical norms. After all, 73% of Americans still identify as Christian, according to a 2012 Pew Forum Study. So the fact that many churchgoers have changed their views about gay civil rights in recent years is one of the major under-reported reasons why same-sex marriage is now legal in nine states. It is also one of the reasons that the constitutional challenge to Proposition 8, which took away gay Californians' right to marry, may get a hearing in the Supreme Court this term (an announcement is expected on Monday)

"Study Says Religion Often Ignored in Prime-Time TV" (March 8): Maybe, but it gets prime coverage in the news; for instance, Israel, Somalia, Lebanon, India, Ireland, Waco et al. AL HIX Hollywood