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 Rep. Todd Akin has defied GOP pressure to get out of the U.S. Senate race in Missouri.
August 23rd, 2012
01:12 PM ET
Conservative Christians rally around Akin in face of GOP criticismBy Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor (CNN) - Even as the official Republican Party continues to try to derail Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin over his remarks about “legitimate rape,” a powerful force within the GOP has begun rallying to the candidate’s side: the party’s socially conservative base. Powerful Christian activists in the GOP have begun pushing back against party leadership, alleging it has gone too far in trying to thwart Akin and that it is attempting to sideline issues that social conservatives care about, such as abortion. The criticism is creating major tensions between the mainstream Republican Party and a key part of its base days before the GOP’s convention is set to open in Tampa, Florida.  An Occupy Wall Street protest in Los Angeles on Thursday.
November 17th, 2011
03:47 PM ET
Survey: 3 in 10 Americans identify with Occupy, Tea Party movementsBy Dan Merica, CNN Washington (CNN) - Both the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements identify with the values of just under a third of the country, according to a survey released Thursday. Twenty-nine percent of Americans say the Occupy Wall Street movement shares their values, the same proportion who say Tea Party shares their values, the survey found. The poll was conducted by Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with the Religion News Service.  Tea party attitudes on human origins mirror religious positions, a new poll found.
September 22nd, 2011
02:26 PM ET
Poll: Tea party opinions of global warming, evolution problematic for GOPBy Dan Merica, CNN Washington (CNN) - Half of the people who identify with the tea party in a new poll reject the science of global warming (50%) and evolution (51%), sentiments that some observers believe portray an increasingly religious electorate that mimics some GOP presidential hopefuls. These numbers compare with 69% of all people surveyed who “believe there is solid evidence that the average temperature on Earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades” and 57% who “believe humans and other living things evolved over time.” According to a Thursday release from the Public Religion Research Institute, the firm that conducted the poll, these results present a strategic challenge for GOP presidential contenders. 
June 29th, 2011
05:55 PM ET
Your take: Comments on Bachmann's evangelical feminismBy Liane Membis, CNN (CNN) - The question of whether or not Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann can be considered an evangelical feminist attracted nearly 3,400 comments. However, the first female presidential candidate for 2012 and Minnesota congresswoman begs to differ. Bachmann told The Daily Beast in an interview that she’s definitely not a feminist but an "empowered American." Readers shared their views, some said that they believe “evangelical feminism” is a contradiction:
 Ralph Reed's Faith and Freedom Coalition conference is drawing many GOP presidential contenders.
June 3rd, 2011
10:09 AM ET
My Take: Ralph Reed event shows Christian Right still matters
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN Over the last year or so, I have read repeatedly that the Christian Right has gone the way of Netscape, Betamax and the buggy whip. The Tea Party phenomenon and the deficit crisis together redirected the GOP from cultural issues to economic ones. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. This wisdom is foolishness, for two reasons. Exhibit A is the long list of Republican speakers for the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference being held this Friday and Saturday in Washington, DC. 
April 25th, 2011
09:10 AM ET
My Take: Trump a litmus test for GOP
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN I don’t really care whether Donald Trump is running for president. But I am dying to see how Republicans respond to him. Today’s Republican Party draws on a wide variety of strands, and those strands pull it in different directions. The party’s libertarian roots are visible in Paul Ryan and Rand Paul and other Ayn Rand aficionados who have classically favored maximizing individual freedom by cutting taxes and minimizing government. Its roots in social conservatism and the Religious Right are visible in Sarah Palin and George W. Bush and their opposition to abortion rights. These two strands conflict, of course, on questions of gay marriage and marijuana decriminalization - whenever the individual liberty so prized by libertarians bumps up against the efforts favored by social conservatives to Christianize the nation.  An antiabortion ran in several publications on Thursday.
April 8th, 2011
09:15 AM ET
My Take: Culture war overtakes budget battle
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN Anyone who still believes that the Tea Party is about economics is not paying attention to what Tea Party partisans are drinking. When it comes to money, the difference between the budgets that Democrats and Republicans want are miniscule - a few billion or so in a budget that will eventually come in at roughly $3.8 trillion. So why is this tiny difference worth shutting down the government? Because this game of chicken is not about money. The old Religious Right put its cultural agenda front and center. It staked its identity on resisting the sexual libertinism of the 1960s. So it opposed abortion and homosexuality and stem-cell research. Tea Party partisans have the same cultural agenda, but this incarnation of the Religious Right proceeds by stealth, in this case with riders to a budget bill - riders they know no Democratic president or Senate can ever accept.
November 5th, 2010
11:32 AM ET
My Take: The anger/hope/repeat cycle in U.S. Politics
By Stephen Prothero, Special to CNN Just a thought, but is it possible that perhaps our current economic catastrophe isn’t really the Democrats’ fault? Or even the Republicans? Is it possible that the fault is our own? Last month I participated in a conversation with Andrew Bacevich, a professor of international relations and history at Boston University, and the author, most recently, of Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War (2010) and The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (2008). The event that brought us together was called “Are Americans God’s Chosen People?” 
November 3rd, 2010
03:56 PM ET
Christian conservative voters turn out big on election nightFrom CNN's Eric Marrapodi: Ralph Reed and his Freedom and Faith Coalition did their best to sway the electorate Tuesday night. Between phone calls, mailings, and knocking on doors, Reed estimated his pro-family, pro-free market group had 58.8 million voter contacts aimed at the conservative faith community. He described that group as "frequently mass-attending Catholics and evangelicals." The coalition says it built a list of 7.7 million households before the midterms who fit that mold. Reed said, "What we were trying to do was ensure those people turned out in the largest number possible and we think that effort was successful."
November 1st, 2010
06:22 PM ET
My take: Which religious voters will show up on Tuesday?
By Anthea Butler, Special to CNN The focus throughout the mid-term campaign has been on the Tea Partiers and predominately white religious communities supporting Republican or Tea Party Candidates. What about other religious communities of African Americans and Latino’s? These constituencies, facing immigration issues, foreclosures, and high unemployment levels, have social issues requiring urgent action. For Latino and African American Voters of faith, the traditional appeal to values voting or litmus tests applied to candidates are not the sole means of vetting candidates. Social concerns often drive voting from these religious communities. |
  About this blog
The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Editor's Note: Stephen Prothero, a Boston University religion scholar and author of "God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World," is a regular CNN Belief Blog contributor.
Editor's Note: Anthea Butler is Associate Professor of Religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania and is an expert on Black churches, evangelicalism and the religious right.