Mark Silk

Mark Silk is director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. He blogs at www.spiritual-politics.com.

Articles by Mark Silk

News

Obama campaign taps Wear, 24, to lead religious outreach

May 15, 2012 by Mark Silk

President Obama’s reelection campaign has tapped a 24-year-old executive assistant in the White House faith-based office to head up its outreach to religious communities.

Michael R. Wear, who has worked in the White House for the past three and a half years, will move to Chicago to become the campaign’s Faith Vote director in late May, White House officials confirmed.

Cover Story

News filter

Navigating the new media

Sep 22, 2009 by Mark Silk, Margaret O'Brien Steinfels, Stephen Prothero, Melissa Rogers, Jeff Sharlet, J. Brent Walker and Martin E. Marty

We asked some expert observers of the religion scene how they are navigating the new media. What do they read, watch and listen to? How have their reading, listening and viewing habits changed over the past decade?Here's Mark Silk: "I’ve always been a news junkie. I still take two dead-tree newspapers—the New York Times and the Hartford Courant. I look at the Washington Post every morning, and I listen to NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered while driving to and from work. At work, I’m in thrall to the continuous news cycle. I check the AP wire on Yahoo as soon as I sit down at my desk, and then scan the general-interest blogs and blogzines—the Daily Dish, Politico, Talking Points Memo, Huffington Post, the Daily Beast."

Features

The faith factor

Religion in the voting booth
Dec 02, 2008 by Mark Silk
The role of religion in the presidential campaign was summed up by Associated Press religion writer Eric Gorski in an article headlined “Religion Used to Divide, Mock in ’08.” Lamenting the low level of discussion of religion, Gorski ran through a YouTubed array of controversies, from the inflammatory preachings of Jeremiah Wright and John Hagee to Mike Huckabee’s thoughts on whether Mormons belie