“Marxist ideology is wrong. But in my life I have known many Marxists who are good people, so I don’t feel offended.”

— Pope Francis, in an interview with La Stampa, responding to conservatives who say he’s a Marxist.

Evangelist Franklin Graham tells CBN News that greed, lust, and wickedness are at the heart of Washington’s woes.

Said Graham: “Our government is in trouble; our country is in trouble. We are in moral decay; we are in economic decay.”
 
He continued: “Our politicians don’t know right from wrong. And our politicians come to this city and they fight one another and it’s the greed in their hearts, the lust that’s in their hearts and they make all these rules and laws that affect the rest of us.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) accused President Obama of arming al Qaeda militants in Syria and said it was evidence “we’re in God’s end times,” The Hill reports.



Said Bachmann: “This happened and as of today the United States is willingly, knowingly, intentionally sending arms to terrorists. Now what this says to me, I’m a believer in Jesus Christ, as I look at the End Times scripture, this says to me that the leaf is on the fig tree and we are to understand the signs of the times, which is your ministry, we are to understand where we are in God’s end times history.”

Jon Stewart noticed that God may be sending mixed signals to the Pope and the Republican party.

[Read more…]

Exodus International, the Christian ministry known for its “pray away the gay” therapy for homosexuals, issued an apology “for years of undue judgment by the organization and the Christian Church as a whole.”

The group also announced it was closing down after 37 years.

Said President Alan Chambers: “Exodus is an institution in the conservative Christian world, but we’ve ceased to be a living, breathing organism. For quite some time we’ve been imprisoned in a worldview that’s neither honoring toward our fellow human beings, nor biblical.”

The Week: Is this the end of “ex-gay” conversion therapy?

Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) signed a law protecting Christmas and other holiday celebrations in Texas public schools from legal challenges while stressing that freedom of religion is not the same thing as freedom from religion, the AP reports.

Said Perry: “It’s a shame that a bill like this one I’m signing today is even required, but I’m glad that we’re standing up for religious freedom in this state. Religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion.”

Arizona State Rep. Juan Mendez (D) acknowledged that he is an atheist as he gave the daily House invocation, urging legislators to look at each other, rather than bow their heads, and “celebrate our shared humanness,” the Arizona Republic reports.

Mendez said it was freeing to be open about his secular views.

Responding to a question from a viewer concerned about her cheating husband, Pat Robertson said that married men “have a tendency to wander” and it is the spurned wife’s job “to focus on the positive and make sure the home is so enticing, he doesn’t want to stray,” the Huffington Post reports.

Said Robertson: “Does he provide a home for you to live in. Does he provide food for you to eat? Does he provide clothes for you to wear? Is he nice to the children… Is he handsome?”

“Our nation has seen judgment not once but twice on September 11 and that’s why we’re going to have ‘9-11 Pray’ on that day. Is there anything better that we can do on that day rather than to humble ourselves and to pray to an almighty God?”

— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), quoted by Huffington Post, promoting a day of prayer on September 11.

In an email exchange with a constituent, North Carolina state Rep. Michele Presnell (R) was asked if she was comfortable with a prayer to Allah before a legislative meeting, the Raleigh News and Observer reports.

Her response: “No, I do not condone terrorism.”

Interestingly, Presnell is a co-sponsor of a resolution asserting that North Carolina can establish a state religion.

“Frankly to tell you the truth some in the evangelical Christian movement I think have appeared too eager for war.”

— Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), in an interview with David Brody.

College student Zach Kopplin, who has been fighting against the teaching of creationism in public schools, smacked down economist Stephen Moore on Real Time with Bill Maher.

It’s definitely worth watching.

[Read more…]

Republican lawmakers in North Carolina introduced a bill to allow the state “to declare an official religion, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and seeks to nullify any federal ruling against Christian prayer by public bodies statewide,” WRAL-TV reports.

“With President Obama and his family in the pews for Easter Sunday worship, the Rev. Luis Leon at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington’s Lafayette Square took the opportunity to take a shot at political conservatives, arguing from the pulpit that some conservative positions are holding people back,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Leon: “It drives me crazy when the captains of the religious right are always calling us back … for blacks to be back in the back of the bus … for women to be back in the kitchen … for immigrants to be back on their side of the border.”

McKay Coppins: “Some leaders of the religious right are openly worried this week after a sprawling 98-page report released by the Republican National Committee on how the party can rebuild after its 2012 implosion made no mention of the GOP’s historic alliance with grassroots Christian ‘value voters.'”

“Specifically, the word ‘Christian’ does not appear once in the party’s 50,000-word blueprint for renewed electoral success. Nor does the word ‘church.’ Abortion and marriage, the two issues that most animate social conservatives, are nowhere to be found. There is nothing about the need to protect religious liberty, or promote Judeo-Christian values in society. And the few fleeting suggestions that the party coordinate with ‘faith-based communities’ — mostly in the context of minority outreach — receive roughly as much space as the need to become more “inclusive” of gays.”

“You may not be interested in Islamism, but Islamism is interested in you… The vast majority of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims adhere to a view of their religion that agrees on the need to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, on the world.”

Former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey, quoted by Salon, speaking on a CPAC panel.

Sarah Palin is writing a her next book about Christmas, the AP reports.

The former Alaska governor has a deal with HarperCollins for A Happy Holiday IS a Merry Christmas and will criticize the “over-commercialism” and “homogenization” of the holiday and call for a renewed emphasis on the religious importance.

Andrew Sullivan: “Well, if anyone’s an expert on miraculous births…”

A Gallup analysis finds Mississippi remained the most religious state in the union in 2012, with
58% of its residents classified as very religious.

At the other end of
the spectrum, Vermont remained the least religious state, with 19% of
its residents classified as very religious.