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The president reminds Glenn Beck, and those who identify with his neo-white nationalism, of the lie of their own professed superiority. The pride with which this segment of society has rallied the troops around its shared sense of whiteness reveals that their skin color is the one true object of pledged allegiance and determinant of professed patriotism.

In one of this week’s features, eminent scholar Philip Clayton proposes that we are entering a new stage in the tangle between religion and science. Professor Robert Tapp responds.

Dick Armey mobilized his protest troops at the Capitol this weekend, and prompted this meditation from our columnist on the dangerous nostalgia for white dominance—then and now—that this anti-Obama movement calls forth.

For 200 years religion, medical science, and psychology have been involved in an intricate, shifting alliance in response to addiction. With recent studies calling core principles of AA into question—like the admission of powerlessness, for example—is AA still the best we’ve got for addressing addiction, or would a different theological model work better?

Over at Salon.com, Frances Kissling has fighting words for self-proclaimed “religious progressives” who are pressing to bypass compromises and including even greater restrictions on abortion.

US News and World Report’s Dan Gilgoff implies that only those with access to the White House are worth writing about.

Those on the religious right and left not only diverge wildly on everything from abortion to torture, but in their composition and distribution as well.

Is it time for progressives, religious and nonreligious, to move toward a strategic acceptance of religious language in the public square? Or should efforts be focused on adding bricks to the wall of church/state separation?

Can government use religious language while remaining neutral in matters of religion? This question, and others, were addressed at a lively panel discussion at Netroots last month. Bruce Ledewitz reports on the event, and sets the stage for further conversation.