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If not, there are still reams of articles and columns being published every day on the subject. As Chicago Tribune religion columnist Steve Kloehn says in today's paper, "Despite the tanker cars of ink devoted in the last week to Joe Lieberman's Jewishness, the political experts are having a hard time making much of it. In the end, the race between Al Gore and George W. Bush will not turn on Lieberman's faith. But religion watchers are having a field day." Kloehn's article is a fine roundup of what's being said about Lieberman's faith from the perspective of mainline Protestants ("That's nice"), evangelicals ("Yippee!"), Louis Farrakhan (does anyone really ever understand what he says?), orthodox Muslims ("uh-oh"), and Jews (you name it, it's been said). But there are a few comments Kloehn misses. Almost every media commentator in the last few days has suggested that the Democrats are getting away with a lot more God-talk than a Republican ever could. "God is back in, as if you haven't noticed," writes Tribune showcase columnist John Kass in a cynical dispatch from the Democratic Convention. "If you're a Democratic candidate, it's now OK to publicly mention God's name 20,000 times an hour. And it's fine to reflect on the relationship between faith and public policy, as long as it's just talk and you still take Hollywood's money." The Tribune's Kathleen Parker harshly condemns a perceived double standard: "Were a devout Christian wearing a fish symbol on his lapel added to the Republican ticket, Democrats and pundits would sponsor a national fish-fry. Put a devout Jew wearing a kipah (skullcap) on the Democratic ticket and suddenly menorahs are on back-order. … While we're all hugging ourselves for our high-minded tolerance at inviting a Jew to the White House, might we expect in the next few months the same religious tolerance toward those who cleave to the New Testament as toward those preferring the Old?" Two of those who cleave to the New Testament, Cal Thomas and Jim Wallis, are saying "enough already" with the examinations of religious belief alone; it's time to talk policy. "We are not electing a rabbi," says conservative columnist Thomas. "We are electing someone on the basis on their policies." But Michael Barone says, in a U.S. News column, "Don't expect talk of religious faith to disappear from the campaign. Americans are more comfortable with it than in the Eisenhower era, partly because the historic hatreds between denominations have dissipated. But, partly in the wake of the Clinton scandals, many voters express a vague desire for government policies with a moral component. 'God talk' has become, for better or worse, part of our politics, and candidates will learn by trial and error how much voters want to hear about their personal religious beliefs."

"The latest media hubbub against capital punishment relies primarily on bogus statistics and the misleading claims of the political left," writes Daniel J. Rabil in The Washington Times. "Christians opposed to executing murderers should not adopt such a flawed approach to advance what should be a moral case against executions." But Rabil doesn't think there is such a moral case. "We also hear that 'too many' poor people are on death row. This sounds compassionate but is really just proletarian mush. … To intimidate Christians, the 'mercy' crowd hurls the all-purpose 'race grenade.' " They may be disproportionately black and poor, Rabil says, but they're guilty and should be killed. "Rather than obsessing over saving the earthly lives of murderers, Christian activists should redirect their moral energy toward saving the heavenly souls of those who await execution." For Christianity Today's different perspective, see our April 6, 1998, editorial. In a related story, the Russian Orthodox Church's "social doctrine" calls for the end of the death penalty.

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August (Web-only) 2000, Vol. 44