Religion

In the desert swelter of southern Pakistan, the scent of rose­water mixed with a waft of hashish smoke. Drummers pounded away as celebrants swathed in red pushed a camel bedecked with garlands, tinsel and multihued scarfs through the heaving crowd. A man skirted past, grinning and dancing, his face glistening like the golden dome of a shrine nearby. "Mast Qalandar!" he cried. "The ecstasy of Qalandar!"

Attacking a religious organization rarely works, said Joe Mathews, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, a political think tank in southern California.

"In fact, it's counterproductive," said Mathews, who supports gay marriage. He said he understands why opponents of the ballot measure would target the LDS Church.

In early September, when Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for Vice-President, announced that her unwed seventeen-year-old daughter, Bristol, was pregnant, many liberals were shocked, not by the revelation but by the reaction to it. They expected the news to dismay the evangelical voters that John McCain was courting with his choice of Palin. Yet reports from the floor of the Republican Convention, in St. Paul, quoted dozens of delegates who seemed unfazed, or even buoyed, by the news. A delegate from Louisiana told CBS News, "Like so many… more

Forget Bill Maher, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. These atheists du jour have nothing on the most famous anti-theist of all time. Good old Karl Marx is still the most eloquent and thoughtful nonbeliever, and his "religion is the opium of the masses" is still the best one-liner in the business.

But as famous as that zinger is, it's too bad that most people have never read the sentences that come before and after it. Marx was a whole lot more sympathetic to religious… more

There is renewed interest in the power and role of faith in America. We see candidates talking about it in campaigns. But how does it influence how public servants in the trenches think about their work?

For the past several years, John Calhoun has been on a cross-country quest to discover how faith motivates some of America's hardest-working public servants. The result? He selected 24 amazing people who pursue a range of innovative and ambitious plans to help their communities. Their accomplishments are impressive, deeply moving, and… more

On September 11, we cannot help but think about the power of religion to shape our world. In the past few years, religion has had a revival in America. It has been catapulted to the front pages of our newspapers, splashed on our television screens and most recently, at the forefront of the presidential campaigns. Religion’s rise to the surface does not need to be a negative, divisive matter. Historically, the U.S. has always had a degree of pluralism,… more

In his first public event since the release of his book, Against Us: The New Face of America's Enemies in the Muslim World, ABC News' Senior Foreign Correspondent Jim Scuitto looks at how -- seven years after 9/11 -- anti-American extremism has become mainstream thinking in the Muslim world. In his book, Sciutto profiles people in eight different Muslim countries - to find that resentment extends far beyond the stereotype of wild-eyed religious fanatics, even to people… more

Faith in the Democratic Platform

It is interesting at the start of the Democratic Convention to note that the draft platform the delegates are beginning to discuss says more about what a faith initiative will not be than what it will be in an Obama administration.

I bet the GOP platform will be more positive. Not that the Democratic platform is negative. It is just less positive than one would imagine. This contrasts with Obama's rhetoric in July about his plans for a Council of Faith-Based and… more

We all know that politics makes strange bedfellows, but how odd it must have been to have sat in on the recent meeting between Barack Obama and evangelical leaders, including Franklin Graham, the conservative minister who once called Islam “a very evil and wicked religion.” Yet there they were, Obama and the evangelicals in Chicago on June 10, searching for -- and apparently finding -- considerable common ground. In the last few weeks, Obama has announced several outreach projects (including… more

One of the remarkable things about the gathering at USIP [United States Institute of Peace] was the diversity of stakeholders represented. Here’s a snapshot:

Think tanks - including the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, Brookings, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the New America Foundation and the Center for American Progress.

Policy makers from the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

Representatives from faith-based organizations, including the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the Islamic Society of North… more