Campaign Religion

The Revealer.org is running an ongoing forum "in search of religion on the campaign trail,"
which asks religion writers how they might cover the presidential campaign. I've got a piece that was posted today.

It's a real honor to be part of the forum, which includes essays by Amy Sullivan, Rod Dreher, Debra Mason of the Religion Newswriters Association, and others.

Sullivan's very insightful, as her Revealer essay and her pieces why Democrats should stop being afraid of religion and whether Evangelicals are dumbing down their faith show.

Raised a Baptist, Sullivan's now an Episcopalian. Here's how she describes her reason for leaving:


I left because I ultimately found the tradition theologically unsatisfying. Evangelicals place such unswerving emphasis on converting the "unsaved" that life, once I was saved, was pretty anticlimactic.

The one-note "come to Jesus" sermons that brought me to the altar failed to provide any guidance for how to live as a Christian in a morally and ethically complex world.

Most Sundays, I sat in the pews with an "I gave my soul to Jesus and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" feeling.


Now there's something to think about.

For another view on the presidential campaigns, check out Toxic Tsunami, a piece by Bryan Keefer. The subtitle tells it all:

The Campaign '04 information war is fast, deep, and fraught with lies. The press must rethink its coverage, or drown in a toxic tidal wave