Christianity

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday had a very heated discussion with Congressman Steve King (R-Ia.) about Barack Obama's religious upbringing. At one point, the "Last Word" host actually asked his guest, "How do we know you are not a Muslim?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Monday I noted how Newsweek religion writer Lisa Miller uncritically peddled the work of two religion scholars who argue that the Bible is not as restrictive on sexual mores as it's widely understood to be. Yesterday, On Faith, a joint project of the Washington Post and Newsweek, granted one of those scholars, Boston University's Jennifer Wright Knust, what appears to be the first of a…

CNBC's Erin Burnett made a gaffe on Tuesday's Street Signs as she covered a new app for Apple devices which is aimed to assist Catholics to go to confession. Burnett wondered if the app, which costs $1.99 would bring the Church "back to the age of 'condolences' (sic), those things that Martin Luther so abhorred" [audio available here]. The anchor reported on the app, "Confession: A Roman…

In the decade since 9/11, the liberal media's patently false insistence that American Muslims were or would soon be the victims of a massive wave of hate crimes at least had the benefit of plausibility. The same can't be said of an effort to suggest that Islam can't get a fair shake in left-wing Hollywood. Yet a recent Associated Press article uncritically detailed an initiative of the Muslim…

On Monday's Newsroom, CNN's David Mattingly continued his network's unbalanced coverage of homosexual issues with his proclamation that a lesbian couple raising kids in Jacksonville, Florida are "part of a new face on the old Bible Belt." Mattingly devoted four sound bites to the couple and the "pro-gay church" they attend, as opposed to only one from a local pastor who supports traditional…

Leave it to the religion writer who sees the Jesus of the Bible as "typically cranky" to give credence to "scholars" who argue the Bible considers gay and/or premarital sex perfectly kosher. In her February 6 post, "What the Bible Really Says About Sex," Miller noted that "[t]wo new books written by university scholars for a popular audience try to answer this question.":

On Thursday evening I noted news reports that the Fox entertainment network would not air an ad by a Christian website, LookUp316 -- referring of course to John 3:16 -- during Super Bowl XLV. So I was pleasantly surprised last night to find that Fox did air the ad after all, just before the beginning of the 4th quarter of the game. USA Today religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman was also…

Apparently the Fox entertainment network, which will broadcast Super Bowl XLV on Sunday, rejected an ad for LookUp316.com, as in the biblical verse John 3:16,  because it "[advances] particular beliefs or practices." [h/t Big Hollywood] However the ad itself -- see the embedded video below -- doesn't proselytize, it merely depicts a man watching a football game looking up "John 3:16" on his…

Can you imagine a Huffington Post headline entitled, "Secular Liberals Need to Understand the Role of Faith in American Politics"? Given the website's history of telling Christian conservative leaders to "go to Hell," celebrating the decline of Christianity in Great Britain, or trashing the Catholic Church, it's not very likely. But yesterday morning the Huffington Post ran a piece by the…

 After ABC’s World News ignored the March for Life pro-life event last week, the January 30 World News Sunday did find time to run a report highlighting complaints by gay rights activists over Chick-fil-A -- a family-owned restaurant chain known for its Christian-based social advocacy -- supplying food to a socially conservative group in Pennsylvania that promoted a ban on same-sex marriage in…

New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman was granted the front page of Wednesday’s Arts section for a snobbish chiding of uncouth American conservatives who helped squelch a video some found sacrilegious, by a featured artist in a Smithsonian gay art exhibit: “In Britain, Separation of Art and State.” ("Separation" except for when it comes to actually subsidizing the art, which Britain does…

It's not often that a CNN anchor declares America a "very Christian nation," but that's what new host Piers Morgan did on Thursday while debating atheist comedian Ricky Gervais. Morgan chided the entertainer for a joke he made while hosting last Sunday's Golden Globes. Morgan critiqued, "...I know American culture quite well now and they're a very Christian nation here in America." During…

Media outlets have uncritically trumpeted a story that claims a 1997 letter is a "smoking gun" that proves that Vatican officials warned Irish bishops not to report child abuse to civil authorities. In fact, as a cursory look at the letter reveals, it shows no such thing. This "smoking gun" story exhibits all the hallmarks of just another hit job by the media, so-called victims advocates, and…

"Holy Cross gets nod for new MoCo hospital: Women's advocates concerned." That's how the Washington Post's online "On Faith" feature teased a Metro section front-pager in the paper's January 21 print edition. [see screen capture below page break]