How evangelicals moved from supporting environmental stewardship to climate skepticism

  White conservative evangelicals, who make up most of the religious right movement, largely oppose government regulation to protect the environmental initiatives, including efforts to curb human-caused climate change. Multiple social scientific studies, for example, consistently reveal that this group maintains a significant level of climate skepticism.

  Contrary to popular perception, however, this hasn’t always been the case.

Hank Sanders: Sketches #1702 - Our religion is not what we say it is, but what we practice

  People keep asking me this question: "How can Evangelical Christians support Trump after all the unchristian things he has done and continues to do?" They usually give a litany of things, and the list is long. I usually reply: "I don't know, but I am a Christian. I teach Sunday School each Sunday morning on the radio and on the internet. But I know that the support for President Trump is not inconsistent with the long history of White European and American Christians. I then take the time to explain in detail again and again. Our religion is not what we say it is, but what we practice.

Josh Carples: The myth of election cycle values

  Churches in the South get political. I’m not accusing them of violating their nonprofit statuses en masse, but growing up, there were always the voter guides provided by organizations like the Christian Coalition, which always leaned heavily conservative and heavily towards the Republican Party.

  Of course, they would never claim to be endorsing a specific candidate, just a set of values, as they would argue. And of course, that is their right.

  From the Jerry Falwell types and the Moral Majority to the 2004 election where every news show talked of "values voters" to the ongoing summits held by such a name, it was ingrained from an early age - character matters, values matter.

  So after all these decades of preaching about voting for good character and family values, I must ask my Christian friends: what happened?

Charles C. Haynes: Olympic fiasco: Awarding Beijing rewards persecution

  Last month, the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2022 Winter Games, demonstrating yet again that selection of a host city has everything to do with politics, money and power — and nothing whatsoever to do with human rights.

  While Chinese government officials were celebrating the “Olympic spirit” in Beijing, it was religious persecution as usual in the rest of the country.

Sally Steenland: Repairing Christianity’s damaged brand

  One of the saddest and most damaging consequences of the Religious Right’s grip on partisan power over the past three decades has been the tarnishing of Christianity.

  Since the 1980s, the Religious Right—an organized political force consisting of extremely conservative Christians—has inserted its theological views into federal and state laws and attempted to impose its doctrines on a diverse, pluralistic nation. Leaders in the Religious Right have partnered with conservatives in the Republican Party to oppose LGBT equality, women’s reproductive health and rights, the teaching of evolution in schools, government safety net programs for the poor, and more.

Charles C. Haynes: In Christmas wars, it’s all or nothing

  In the angry eyes of Christians in Santa Monica, Calif., Damon Vix is the atheist who stole Christmas.

  Vix is blamed for the city’s decision to ban all private displays in Palisades Park, ending a tradition of 14 Nativity scenes erected by church groups in the park every December for the last 60 years.