My goodness. No, Thanksgiving is not a religious holiday! And of course, “non-believers” can celebrate it. Just yesterday on our God’s Politics blog, a Native American leader talked about how they can even find ways to celebrate Thanksgiving, despite the dubious origins of the holiday between early settlers and American Indians. And if our indigenous citizens, whom we almost made extinct after the first Thanksgiving dinner, can find a way to re-interpret and redeem the holiday, certainly the rest of us can. My English wife says that her fellow citizens sometimes celebrate July 4 as their “Thanksgiving,” the day they got rid of us!

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As a Christian, and an evangelical Christian at that, I want to say emphatically that America is not, and should not be, a “Christian nation.”

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That Jesus called us to non-violence and not to “just wars” is painfully clear. And the fact that Jesus said the peacemakers, not the war-makers, are the ones who will be blessed; and that when he commanded us to love our enemies he really meant it—is also quite evident.

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I have said and written many times that I think a good and fair discussion of how a candidate’s faith shapes his or her political values should be viewed as an appropriate and positive thing—it’s as relevant as any other fact about a politician’s background, convictions, and experience for public office.

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Yes, I pray. But there are many misunderstandings about prayer. For many, prayer is talking to God, sometimes with a great list of requests and needs—sort of like children’s Christmas lists mailed to Santa Claus.

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Yes, I pray. But there are many misunderstandings about prayer. For many, prayer is talking to God, sometimes with a great list of requests and needs—sort of like children’s Christmas lists mailed to Santa Claus.

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It already is. The “greening” of the Evangelicals, in particular is the major new development.

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Well, that’s a funny way to put the question: Is sex sacred or sin? In the Bible, and most religious traditions, sex can, of course, be either.

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