News

Friday Interview: The Faith of the Founders

RALEIGH — We learn in school about the separation of church and state. We’re told it’s an idea the Founders embraced as they developed the early structures of American government. Philosopher, theologian, and author Michael Novak tells a different story. An American Enterprise Institute scholar in religion, philosophy, and public policy, Novak recently discussed “Presidents and Providence” during a Headliner speech in Raleigh for the John Locke Foundation and the Ralph McInerny Center. He also discussed the Founders’ religious beliefs with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio.

CJ Staff
Opinion

Religion Reporters Just Don’t Get It

Most religion reporters are a lot like religion professors. They really don’t seem to like religion or religious people, and their approach to the subject is usually from a left-multicultural mindset. Recent research has shown that among the most left-wing disciplines at universities is Religious Studies. Reporters, for their part, cover religion mostly as pathology these days.

Jon Ham
News

Religion Ruled the Cause of Firing

RALEIGH — Michael Vanderburg was a promising, highly motivated new employee at the N.C. Department of Revenue with positive performance reviews. Just short of being at his job for two years, and thus obtaining career civil service job protection, Vanderburg was fired for what he contends was religious discrimination. In a ruling March 1, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled that state law protects even new state workers such as Vanderburg against religious and other forms of discrimination and upheld a lower court in ordering him rehired. Vanderburg was hired in January 1999 and his first supervisors were pleased with his work.

Michael Lowrey
News

Most Teens Embrace Faith, Parents

RALEIGH — Contrary to “widespread and persistent stereotypes,” most American adolescents are not alienated from or hostile toward organized religion, and as much as two-thirds of those youth closely agree with the religious beliefs of their parents, a UNC-Chapel Hill study says. It reported that “only about 10 to 20 percent of adolescents manifest severe emotional disturbance,” which they said mirrors the adult population, while “only between 5 and 10 percent of families see a dramatic decline in the quality of parent-child relationships during the teen-age years.”

Paul Chesser

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News

Study Examines Teens on Religion

RALEIGH — Contrary to “widespread and persistent stereotypes,” most American adolescents are not alienated from or hostile toward organized religion, and as much as two-thirds of those youth closely agree with the religious beliefs of their parents, a UNC-Chapel Hill study says. The findings were released Tuesday as part of a four-year research project, the National Study of Youth and Religion. The authors said their findings refute the notion of a “storm and stress” stereotype found in old clinical sampling biases and popular books on youth.

Paul Chesser
News

Raleigh Rally Supports Alabama Display

RALEIGH — About 200 people rallied Wednesday at North Carolina's State Capitol in support of public displays of the Ten Commandments and unrestricted acknowledgments of God. Organizers of the rally are leading a series of demonstrations that began Sunday in Montgomery, Ala., where Chief Justice Roy Moore was ordered to remove a 5,300-pound monument from that state’s capital rotunda. The sculpture was inscribed with the Ten Commandments and Moore’s case has caused a national outcry from conservative Christians over the removal of God from public places.

Paul Chesser
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