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The original culture warrior has softened his rhetoric, but the message, aired all day long on various networks (it seems) is no less divisive than in the heady days of the early ’90s.

We picketed bishops and Popes, stole their dresses, stood up at the consecration of the Eucharist and said the words out loud. We are the bad girls of Catholic feminism, and we have stood up, over and over again, for women’s freedom.

Most people know only the Big-C Christianity—Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, and Christian America—but there is another one, linked to a biblical parable of a wounded man’s rescue by a stranger.

Unlike the recent document claiming reconciliation between evangelicals and progressives the only way democracy has ever been expanded in the US, according to the Rev. Sekou, is by the defeat of conservative evangelical positions.

Drawing connections between history’s heroes and today’s leaders is one way to tell a political story. But invocations of Obama as Lincoln, as MLK, or as FDR are double-edged.

Nonviolent resistance movements were part of the 20th century’s eternal contribution to human history; can those ideals be sustained and reinvigorated for a new era?

Controversial mega-pastor Rick Warren gave a little-noticed sermon at King’s home church in Atlanta on Monday. In it he seemed to dance around the controversy, invoking King’s unpopularity seemingly in reference to his.

Christians should neither excoriate Israel nor remain silent in the face of horrendous attacks in Gaza and elsewhere. Rather, according to Rev. Laarman, American Christians must heed King and make the issue about US policy and the kind of nation we aspire to be.

There is a temptation to regard Obama’s inauguration as the end of a forty year “wilderness” experience, but symbolism and symmetry can only take us so far. We, as citizens, are going to need to hold Obama accountable.

In a series of short essays, special to Religion Dispatches, religious historians, philosophers, and ethicists celebrate Obama’s place in American history while heeding Dr. King’s continued prophetic challenge for our nation.