Religion and Politics

As should be obvious by now -- not least because I've expressly said it several times -- I have very strong and deep interests in both religion and politics.  Have had since I was a teenager.  (Curiously, I think the political interest came a bit earlier, even in my pre-teens, though I now think the religious interest is by far the more fundamental, both intrinsically and in me.)

I sometimes hear it said that one should never lose a friend over either religion or politics.  To which I respond that, while one should try not to lose friendships, religion and politics, broadly construed, are two of only a small handful of topics that are worth losing a friend over.

Surely it's not worth ending a relationship over competing team loyalties in sports, or taste in food or music, or whether one squeezes the toothpaste from the bottom or the top. 

Anyhow, a year like this one, in which politics and religion (my own religion, no less) constantly intersect, is pretty powerful stuff for me. 

So I've come to appreciate two sites, in particular, that treat this specific confluence with specific focus on Mitt Romney, and I recommend them:

http://article6blog.com/

http://evangelicalsformitt.org/

The first includes a substantial Evangelical component.  The second is entirely Evangelical.

Bill Keller can't be pleased.