AU Students

It’s only a week away from Thanksgiving; the trees have all turned from green to vibrant shades of reds, yellows and browns and a crisp chill in the air puts me on pins and needles as I wait for the season’s first snow. As we reach mid November, the end of the calendar year always sneaks up on me — Christmas is right around the corner and that means it’ll be New Year’s Eve before we know it.

I just got back from New York City, where I spoke at an interesting event sponsored by our friends at the Center for Inquiry.

On Tuesday night, a three-person panel discussed the issue “Church and State in the Obama Era” at All Souls Church, a Unitarian-Universalist congregation. I wouldn’t call this event a debate; it was more of a discussion of where we stand under Obama – as I put it (taking off from the title of an old Clint Eastwood Western), “The Good, the Bad and the Uncertain.”

As president, one of Barack Obama’s most important tasks is making appointments to the federal courts.

The Senate has a role to play too. They are to “advise and consent.” If a judicial appointee is deemed unqualified, a majority of the Senate can vote him or her down.

Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Senate performed its role. Sotomayor, who had a long record of judicial service, now sits on the nation’s top bench.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page takes a potshot at Americans United and Barry Lynn today.

That’s not surprising. The Journal’s news department is staffed by lots of skilled and professional reporters who have done some crackerjack reporting on the Religious Right over the years. Fortunately, there’s a wall of separation between those folks and the editorial page staff.

The latter is, as the saying goes, to the right of Attila the Hun.

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.

Hang on to your pews, flock. I’m about to preach some.

Turn in your Bibles to the Book of Matthew, Chapter 6. Now sit tight while I explain my sudden interest in exegesis.

I guess it’s a little impertinent for me to issue a report card for President Barack Obama on his performance during his first 100 days in office. I’m not his teacher, and he’s not my student.

But what the heck? It’s a free country and everyone else is doing it. So here goes.

I’m focusing on issues with church-state implications. Somebody else can tackle the other topics.

The partisan pugilists over at Fox News Channel have been howling about President Barack Obama’s insistence that America is a pluralistic nation that respects all faiths.

Obama, you may recall, said during his recent visit to Turkey that the United States is “a secular country that is respectful of religious freedom, respectful of rule of law, respectful of freedom….”

The United States was not founded as a Christian nation. Nothing in the Constitution grants Christianity favored status. In fact, Article VI bans religious tests for federal office, and the First Amendment bars laws “respecting an establishment of religion” while protecting “the free exercise thereof” – for all faiths.

It’s good to hear political leaders remind us of this fact from time to time, as President Barack Obama did yesterday during a press conference in Turkey.

Lock up the children! The Rev. Wiley Drake is on the loose again.

I’m sure you remember Drake, the controversial California pastor and media hound. Drake, a Southern Baptist, is perhaps best known for waging an “imprecatory prayer” campaign against Americans United and its staff (including me by name – thanks, Wiley!).