Obama’s choice of Pastor Rick Warren of the Saddleback megachurch to give the invocation sparked an uproar. Liberals felt betrayed that Obama would pick an outspoken conservative evangelical and opponent of gay marriage and abortion rights for such a prime spot, and some of Warren’s allies on the religious right thought his appearance would give Obama […]

Read a post from Jan. 8, 2010, by sociologist Mark Chaves at the Faith & Leadership site of Duke Divinity School. Chaves summarizes his research, based on the National Congregations Study, showing that federal faith-based initiatives have had little or no impact on houses or worship and religious social service organizations, or on the delivery of social […]

Read a Feb. 4, 2010, story in The Wall Street Journal that discusses Obama’s decision to allow religious groups that receive taxpayer dollars to discriminate to some extent in hiring.

The chaplain of the Senate traditionally gave a blessing at the inauguration, but since Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937, the president-elect has chosen clergy to deliver the prayers. Steven Waldman, author of the book Founding Faith: Providence, Politics and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America (2008) and editor in chief of Beliefnet, has an archive of the […]

In the run-up to the inaugural, President-elect Obama said he would continue the practice, whatever its origins. But several atheist groups filed a suit to remove the words from the oath on the grounds that it violates the separation of church and state. They were also joined by prominent atheist and activist Michael Newdow, who lost a […]

A Feb. 19, 2010, post by Cornell law professor Steven H. Shiffrin at the ReligiousLeftLaw blog argues that liberals should give religious groups more leeway in obtaining federal funding, in part because social service faith groups have been receiving such funds for more than 70 years with few problems.

Read a transcript of Pastor Rick Warren’s opening prayer, posted at ChristianityToday.com.

Read a transcript of President Obama’s inaugural address, posted at The Washington Post site. The speech was replete with religious and scriptural references and images.

David Neumark is an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine. Neumark co-authored a July 2005 analysis called “A Decade of Living Wages: What Have We Learned?” That report concludes that living-wage laws have increased salaries of the lowest-wage earners, but there have been some adverse effects too, and more policy changes are needed to […]