https://politicalresearch.org/ The latest research related to national prayer breakfast en https://religiondispatches.org/2023/02/10/70th-national-prayer-breakfast-made-cosmetic-changes-biden-delivered-same-old-tone-deaf Last week, Americans were forced to endure this year’s National Prayer Breakfast —the 70th since the unfortunate tradition, which ought to have been dropped as an embarrassing relic of early Cold War excess decades ago, was launched by the authoritarian… Fri, 10 Feb 2023 04:21:22 EST Chrissy Stroop 5a726a5a-a97c-4642-85ac-491c7fecbba8 https://religiondispatches.org/2022/08/18/media-fail-acknowledge-2024-hopeful-ron-desantis-catholic-biden We’re not used to thinking of Ron DeSantis , Florida’s rabidly culture-warring governor and a possible 2024 frontrunner for the Republican presidential candidate, as a Catholic politician. He clearly is one, although documenting the ins and outs of how DeSantis’s… Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:05:24 EDT Chrissy Stroop db4912f2-0df5-4837-b413-0fd318e9628c https://religiondispatches.org/2022/01/13/uses-and-abuses-legacy-dr-martin-luther-king-jr In January 1994, a week after the King holiday, I walked into the lobby of my dorm to listen to representatives from the Israeli School of Universal Practical Knowledge (ISUPK), a Black Israelite group. Someone asked about Dr. Martin Luther… Thu, 13 Jan 2022 05:59:52 EST A. E. Brooks-Key 70673a15-ab26-42c1-a20b-d2130e0bb39a https://religiondispatches.org/2021/10/14/new-book-esteemed-sociologist-robert-wuthnow-struggles-show-why-religion-good-american At a time when Christian Nationalism is finally being recognized as a threat to democracy, not only by legacy media , but also by the National Council of Churches and the rapidly secularizing population of the US, Robert Wuthnow, the… Thu, 14 Oct 2021 03:31:04 EDT Peter Laarman 241cfe7a-5d47-4df3-ac75-e346a3655b29 https://religiondispatches.org/2021/02/08/2021-national-prayer-breakfast-kinder-gentler-christian-capitalism The 2021 National Prayer Breakfast (NPB), held annually the first Thursday in February and attended by every sitting President since its founding in 1953, reverted this year to dishing out their faith based programming on fine china in lieu of… Mon, 08 Feb 2021 11:54:14 EST Becky Garrison dcc3c6ca-fd06-497e-8bca-c8d873dad6f2 https://religiondispatches.org/2020/10/20/how-us-conservatives-conjured-jesus-their-dreams It seems that when Donald Trump and his Republican enablers are able to seat a sixth right wing justice on the Supreme Court, our Lord Jesus will be doing backflips in heaven in pure ecstasy over this triumph for the… Tue, 20 Oct 2020 03:37:40 EDT Peter Laarman bcc53dbd-057f-4548-bf86-47036defc135 https://religiondispatches.org/2020/09/29/prochoice-religious-community-sleeping-giant You could be forgiven if, after watching the 2020 Democratic and Republican party conventions, you thought that the religious community in the U.S. was pretty uniformly anti-abortion. Although reproductive choice and justice got a sprinkling of mentions at the Democratic… Tue, 29 Sep 2020 04:54:17 EDT Frederick Clarkson 18f778be-5a97-4c90-9857-887edc5d1350 https://religiondispatches.org/2019/09/09/almost-blockbuster-netflix-series-family-exposes-christian-network-whose-god-power Homophobia, misogyny, and contempt for the poor are so very much taken for granted and accepted as “Christian” within The Family that its principals are able to say, with a perfectly straight face, that they have no political agenda when they support and subsidize authoritarian leaders around the world who exemplify and implement these hatreds. Mon, 09 Sep 2019 05:02:14 EDT Peter Laarman ca02949b-949a-46e6-8209-8d325645bace https://religiondispatches.org/2019/05/03/satanic-temples-irs-recognition-rekindles-fierce-debate-over-what-really-real-church While TST is not the first Satanic organization to obtain this status, it is the first group that clearly intends to deploy this status in legal challenges. TST’s demands for equal treatment under the law are going to be much harder to dismiss from here on out. Fri, 03 May 2019 01:18:40 EDT Joseph Laycock 71601e63-ac66-492c-879f-f8320f9ea1de https://religiondispatches.org/2019/04/26/russian-operative-maria-butina-who-leveraged-christian-right-connections-sentenced While the focus of the sentencing memo is on Butina’s connections to organizations like the NRA, the memo also cites her connection to the National Prayer Breakfast, an annual event that’s been hosted by The Family since 1953. Fri, 26 Apr 2019 01:05:44 EDT Becky Garrison cb833852-bf46-443b-abca-98c308b48dad https://religiondispatches.org/2019/03/05/trumps-cpac-meltdown-wasnt-just-comedy-gold-it-was-groundbreaking-extremism Prior to Trump, no president has actually spoken at public right-wing events like CPAC and the Values Voter Summit, and he’s the first president to actively embrace the prosperity gospel. Tue, 05 Mar 2019 12:42:01 EST Becky Garrison 7086328c-143e-43af-8a43-8e33ab40bfdc https://religiondispatches.org/2018/11/01/evangelical-pr-blitz-midterms-wont-fix-81-problem Evangelicals—and those who are strongly invested in a “respectable” image for evangelicalism—now seem to be making a concerted effort to push back ahead of the midterm elections. Thu, 01 Nov 2018 10:46:57 EDT Chrissy Stroop 843625df-55ef-4a71-9591-b9cad4bba2d0 https://religiondispatches.org/2018/02/22/billy-graham-and-gospel-american-nationalistic-christianity Billy Graham’s death on the same day as the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X is an interesting postscript to the life of America’s premier evangelist of Americanism. It would take an outsider to deftly articulate Graham’s mission. In… Thu, 22 Feb 2018 01:20:21 EST Anthea Butler c3ad26e3-4521-4d32-96f2-09c8c484c727 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/06/08/pences-prayer-breakfast-appearance-underscores-fractured-american-catholicism The annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast is hardly a bipartisan or nonpolitical event. It was founded in 2004 as part of an effort to cement ties between conservative Catholics, the Catholic hierarchy, and the GOP. Among those associated with it… Thu, 08 Jun 2017 02:34:44 EDT Patricia Miller 70ccb19c-1745-45c8-9460-67b65319c489 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/02/07/more-myth-fact-kushner-and-ivanka-changed-trumps-mind-lgbt-discrimination Despite reports (from unnamed sources) suggesting otherwise, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner are not the secret ingredient to upholding LGBT rights under a Trump-Pence administration. Reports had been circulating that the couple urged the president to maintain Obama’s 2014 executive… Tue, 07 Feb 2017 02:26:03 EST Sunnivie Brydum 855eb4c1-afef-4909-ada6-f2d45946de04 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/02/03/are-you-there-god-its-me-donald-president-prayer “You saw those crowds at the inauguration? What a flock, right? You had a great view, I bet, the original Eye in the Sky. Back me up, it was over a billion people. Huge.” Fri, 03 Feb 2017 12:41:27 EST Peter Laarman 1bdc4221-55bc-42a0-a9fd-a66eac7947b2 https://religiondispatches.org/2017/02/02/under-godits-great-thing-trump-delivers-his-christian-base The heart of Trump’s speech was a defense of “religious liberty” that sounded a lot like protecting Christian—and specifically evangelical—lives and values. Thu, 02 Feb 2017 04:00:02 EST Diane Winston 9a9d1b02-d9b4-4c9b-9a99-07d377895187 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/05/21/competing-visions-family-freedom-un-methodists-try-avoid-schism-sexuality-catholic Tuesday, May 17 was commemorated as International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, or IDAHOT. Among the many projects undertaken: The Bedayaa Organization for LGBTQI in the Nile Valley Area (Egypt & Sudan), the Maseahat Foundaiton for Sexual and Gender… Sat, 21 May 2016 04:08:15 EDT Peter Montgomery f37de147-b48c-4a22-8271-f084be5d0573 https://religiondispatches.org/2016/02/06/putins-children-push-traditional-values-latvia-jewish-reparative-therapy-group-finds International Activism and Advocacy The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released “ Born Free and Equal: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in International Human Rights Law.” The report promotes five core legal obligations states have… Sat, 06 Feb 2016 12:14:30 EST Peter Montgomery 4200daf9-4e44-4c2a-baae-4e9a2983e4a0 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/09/13/why-donald-trumps-love-affair-evangelicals-probably-wont-last According to the latest Quinnipiac University poll of Republican likely caucus-goers, Donald Trump is still earning the admiration of 20 percent of evangelicals, bested only by Ben Carson at 27 percent. Candidates once thought to be easy evangelical favorites are… Sun, 13 Sep 2015 03:36:07 EDT Sarah Posner b38aecca-de6a-4edf-8a9e-781db2b4c9e8 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/04/20/invention-corporate-christian-america According to author Kevin Kruse, the idea that America is a “Christian nation” was invented only recently, forged by an alliance between industrialists and conservative clergy who preached the connection between Christianity and capitalism. In One Nation Under God, the… Mon, 20 Apr 2015 02:59:33 EDT Andrew Aghapour 858fdabd-ec1f-4fcb-b898-7a2dbdbb0c6f https://religiondispatches.org/2015/02/25/why-republicans-dont-think-obama-christian Alex Theodoridis, a political scientist at the University of California, Merced, conducted a survey last fall of Americans’ understanding of President Obama’s religious beliefs. Remarkably, he found that in response to the question, “Which of these do you think most… Wed, 25 Feb 2015 06:05:14 EST Sarah Posner 6a9524d2-8128-4f55-b757-a0e94131856c https://religiondispatches.org/2015/02/12/what-do-christians-think-about-netanyahu-speech Earlier this week, reacting to the faux controversy over President Obama’s National Prayer Breakfast remarks, Ed Kilgore argued that all too often, the media ignores the views of liberal Christians, opting instead to “buy the idea that the only ‘authentic’… Thu, 12 Feb 2015 12:41:21 EST Sarah Posner dbb37fbb-1776-4b1b-b0da-3de567876136 https://religiondispatches.org/2015/02/06/if-national-prayer-breakfast-apolitical-and-nonsectarian-why-it-used-question-obamas Many conservative commentators are apoplectic over these remarks by President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday: But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge — or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon. From a… Fri, 06 Feb 2015 04:55:33 EST Sarah Posner 9543edf9-f606-4104-a8ea-dbd0b31541ba https://religiondispatches.org/2015/02/06/michael-sean-winters-right-pope-francis-should-not-address-congress No religious leader has ever addressed a Joint meeting of Congress—so, why now? Fri, 06 Feb 2015 04:38:47 EST Patricia Miller dadcce67-b92a-4f1e-b12d-8707258c84a0