Author: Gordon Govier

ARTICLEThere it was, gleaming at me from the glossy pages of a catalog: the perfect slogan t-shirt, with its cheeky grasp of the truth. I reached for my purse, intending to pull out my Visa. My husband, Pete, and I don’t have a ton of arguments—mostly because he’s so nice—but his lack of listening skills has been the source of many of them.Read more of this article.

The National Prayer Breakfast is a three-day event crammed with seminars and tours for guests from around the country. The expensive ticket prices for the breakfast subsidize a host of international visitors — plus some heads of state — who are flown here for what’s essentially low-key intros to Christianity.Read more of this story.

As thousands of Catholics line up to receive the sign of the cross in ashes on Wednesday to mark the start of Lent, more Protestants are joining the tradition to observe Easter more meaningfully.Read more of this story.

COMMENTARYAt a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama’s race or Hillary Clinton’s sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee’s religious faith.Read more of this commentary.

LONDON, Feb. 3 — A clown on a unicycle, with a Bozo-orange wig and a beep-beep red nose, rolled down the center aisle of Holy Trinity Church just before a reading from the Gospel of Matthew. In pews on both sides sat scores of giggling men and women wearing huge bow ties, lime and pink wigs, poofy checkered pants, floppy shoes and, of course, big red noses. Read more of this story.

PHOENIX (BP)–The night before their historic Super Bowl upset of the New England Patriots, the New York Giants heard from Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary at their team chapel service about putting God first in all they do.Singletary, who spoke to two dozen players and coaches at the Giants’ team hotel late Saturday, won a Super Bowl title in his one and only appearance as a member of the Chicago Bears. In an interview prior to the chapel, Singletary said he planned to tell the players that, regardless of the outcome of Super Bowl XLII, they must keep God…

When Kenny Luck and his 11-year old son jumped off a 30-foot cliff into a pool of water on a Mexican vacation it was pretty exciting, a real adrenalin rush. But then his seven-year old daughter said she wanted to do it too.He thought that once he got her to the top of the cliff she would look out over the edge and change her mind. She didn’t. Looking down at his daughter in her goggles and her cute little swimsuit he said, "Are you sure?" He asked several times, and she kept saying yes, she was sure. So he…

Now, the story of a Wisconsin National Guard officer who saw combat in Iraq but who also discovered a young Iraqi orphan crippled with cerebral palsy — a 10-year-old boy who faced a life of loneliness and suffering. After his tour of duty, Captain Scott Southworth returned home to Wisconsin but could not forget about the boy named Ala’a.aRead more of this story.

COMMENTARYChristian conservatives are often lambasted these days for fixating on abortion and homosexuality, as if we have sexual hang-ups. Tony Campolo has said for years that the Religious Right has “hijacked” the Christian faith over such issues. Yesterday at the National Cathedral, Rick Warren, who said the country needs liberals and conservatives, lamented that Christians still are viewed as only “right wing.” Read more of this commentary.

Ever since phrases such as "values voters" and "God Gap" were coined during the 2004 presidential election, authors from the spiritual and political left, right and center have been writing about faith and politics. Now, in time for the 2008 campaign, there’s a raft of new titles by preachers, politicians, pollsters and partisans, historians, sociologists, journalists and more.Read more of this story.