Religion

Made no mistake: America is a Christian nation. The bedrock of our theo-democracy is our Judeo-Christian values. that term, by the way, is a bit of a misnomer. It implies that Christianity and Judaism are equal.

Can I just defend posthumous baptism? I really don't understand why this is wrong. If you believe Mormonism is nonsense, then what difference does it make? And if you don't believe it is nonsense, then it helps you get to heaven. Why do people take offense?

These baptisms are insulting. You spend your life as a Jew; you die in part because you're a Jew, in Pearl's case and certainly Simon Wiesenthal’s; you hold on to that identity at great personal cost. And then when you're dead, someone else decides for you that no, actually you're a Mormon? To hell with that, no pun intended. Religion is exclusive—maybe not Buddhism, but all the other major world religions. You choose to be one thing, not the other, and that is your choice, not some other church's.

The Mormons even baptized Anne Frank. It took Ernest Michel, then chairman of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, three years to get Mormons to agree to stop proxy-baptizing Holocaust victims.

Evangelicalism at its best seeks a biblically grounded expression of Christianity that is intellectually engaged, humble and forward-looking. In contrast, fundamentalism is literalistic, overconfident and reactionary.

The real struggle of the future will be about who is capable of fulfilling the desires of a devout public. It’s going to be about who is Islamist and who is more Islamist, rather than about the secularists and the Islamists.

Political dictatorship and social hopelessness create the desperation that fuels religious extremism.

Ascribing the evil acts of a few individuals to an entire community is wrong; it is ineffective, and it risks making our country less secure.

Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

The culture war is a battle between traditionalists and secularists of all faiths. It’s not a battle between different religious groups but within them.

The culture war is a battle between traditionalists and secularists of all faiths. It's not a battle between different religious groups but within them.

Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own.