Featured Articles
Where Do Evangelicals Stand on CEO Compensation?
In the spirit of this week’s question on how different religious groups relate to the massive financial troubles on Wall Street, I spent time this morning digging through resources on how evangelicals view the issue of CEO compensation. With the federal bailout package currently stalled in Congress ландшафтin part because of a debate over whether [...]
24Sep2008 | Andrea Useem | 5 comments | ContinuedWhy Religion May Not Matter Much in 2008, Part 2
For three days last week, I got my chance to do what I love most: hang out with fellow religion writers and talk/listen/think obsessively about the latest religious news and issues. It was the Religion Newswriters Association annual conference, held this year in D.C. (Melissa Rogers has rounded up the excellent blog coverage by fellow [...]
23Sep2008 | Andrea Useem | 3 comments | ContinuedOn the Spiritual Perils of Religion Writing: Q&A with Rod Dreher
As a journalist, writing in the first person is still pretty new for me. But starting this site, blogging professionally and generally entering the Web 2.0 world is essential for my professional survival, and reading Romenesko, the blog-stlye round-up of media-industry news, reminds me of that fact daily. On the one hand, it’s freeing to [...]
15Sep2008 | Andrea Useem | 12 comments | Continued“Surprised by God:” On Falling in Love with Religious Law
Danya Ruttenberg’s memoir, Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion, about how she grew from an athiest-Jewish high schooler to an observant-Jewish 30-something rabbi is really fantastic: well-written, engaging, skating that line between the personal and the universal with surprising grace. While reading it, I had to restrain myself from [...]
10Sep2008 | Andrea Useem | 1 comment | ContinuedJohn McCain Speaks of His True Religious Conversion
Last night’s speech from GOP presidential nominee John McCain’s speech in St. Paul was lackluster at moments, particular in comparison to the “electrifying” speech of VP nominee Sarah Palin the night before. But there was one moment, toward the end, when the hall grew quiet and focused, and the cameras had an easier time finding [...]
5Sep2008 | Andrea Useem | 1 comment | Continued
Inspiration and Vacation, with a Small Dose of Poetry
It’s August now — and time to take a break. When I launched this website in April, 2007, my biggest concern was not getting burned out. I had seen some statistics somewhere (which I’m too lazy to Google just now, so you’ll have to trust me) that lots of blogs die out quickly. I [...]
3Aug2008 | Andrea Useem | 6 comments | Continued
Obama in Lynchburg: The Faith-versus-Works Debate
Here’s a photo I took this weekend while driving through Lynchburg, the central Virginia town where religious right leader Jerry Falwell ministered and built Liberty University. The sign outside this small church reads, as you can see: “USA TELL OBAMA JESUS CHRIST NEEDED FOR SALVATION READ ACTS 4:12.”
Part of the reason this sign caught my [...]
What the Heck Is the Emerging Church? A “Velvet Elvis” Answer
I always like new ideas, and I relish nothing more than watching big, paradigm-shifting movements overturn the status quo. (This probably has something to do with my birth-order position as a “rebellious” second child, but anyways.) Emergent Christianity has tickled my interest recently because it is just that: a completely new way of doing things. [...]
16Jul2008 | Andrea Useem | 4 comments | Continued
When God Goes Bad: Shalom Auslander’s Memoir of Rotten Religion
Here’s something I don’t like doing: Writing frankly about my own life. Here’s something I love doing: Reading other people write frankly about their lives. As a result, I love Shalom Auslander’s book, Foreskin’s Lament, in which he writes with a hilarious, tragic clarity about his life as a recovering Orthodox Jew.
Luckily, Auslander is funny [...]
God and Forgiveness on the Bathroom Floor: Immaculee Ilibagiza and the Rwandan Genocide
Some books are so powerful, so disturbing, I almost hesitates to recommend them or pass along a copy to a friend. Left to Tell, a spiritual autobiography written by a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, is one such book. A friend who read it at her church lent it to me, and the book spent [...]
17Jun2008 | Andrea Useem | 5 comments | Continued