Dear RCR Readers:
Please join us for our live blog on election night, November 2. We will
be covering the election, updating you with all the congressional races
and providing commentary and analysis as the evening unfolds. We will
also discuss the role that American religion played in shaping this historic election.
Our panelists include editors from all six RealClear sites (Religion,
World, Science, Sports, Politics, and Markets), as well as journalists
and commentators who will be covering the election.
Simply check back here on Nov. 2, starting at 7 p.m. ET. You will be
able to make your own comments and observations and share with our
audience. We look forward to your participation.
Religion is serious and silly, scandalous and sublime.
Religion writing ought to reflect this reality. Too often, it doesn't.
That's a problem because religion is vitally important to billions of
people the world over. It gives them a way to think about making sense
of things, forming families, helping others, and helping themselves.
RealClearReligion.org aims to change this. We want to improve religion
writing by highlighting the best of it, by giving interested parties a
daily shortlist of news and commentary that they really ought to check
out. We will cover religion in itself and religion as it influences
those things that we can't avoid: religion and science, religion and
culture, religion and commerce, religion and politics.
We understand that even the use of the word "religion" as a catch-all
can be dicey. People believe in particular things rather than in
generalized "religion" and various sects and denominations disagree,
sometimes violently. People even disagree over whether certain beliefs
(communism, environmentalism, AA) constitute religions. We will
highlight those conflicts here, as well as clashes between belief and a
cocky unbelief that is sometimes called the "new" atheism.
This site will present not just both sides but a veritable
kaleidoscope of viewpoints, because religion isn't nearly as narrow as
partisan politics. However, we cannot claim to be completely unbiased in
these matters. How could we? We appropriate as our starting point the
final lines from the stage adaptation of Crime and Punishment:
RCR: Do you believe a man can be resurrected?
Raskolnikov: I don't know anymore.
RCR: And do you believe in God?
Raskolnikov: Does it matter?
RCR: It might.
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