South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's divorce from his wife of 20 years will become final in mid-March, a judge ruled today. He and his wife Jenny Sanford have spoke openly of their Christian faith.

In a recent FocusFamilyINSIGHT from Glenn Stanton, he juxtaposed Jenny Sanford with Gayle Haggard, both of whom recently published best-selling books on their husbands' infidelity.

Given the shattered marriage covenants due to the husbands’ infidelities, both women have biblical grounds for divorce.

Is one’s decision more right, more virtuous than the other? Good question.

Both women have important, honorable and ultimately pro-marriage and family reasons for their very different decisions.

Gayle Haggard recently told Christianity Today her reason for staying,
“I stayed because I believe in the teachings of Jesus, that if we choose forgiveness and love, our relationships can heal. …I wasn't going to let the struggle that had been going on with him disqualify or undo the 30 years of life we had built together… I wasn't going to let this thing deny all of what we have spent our lives invested in.”

That is a remarkably beautiful statement of profound faith and commitment in the face of a very real and very broken situation. Jenny Sanford said publicly she was committed to and very much wanted to save her marriage. But she later concluded that would not be possible because her husband refused to end his adulterous relationship. She made the love-must-be-tough decision that both love and dignity required for herself, her four boys, even her husband.

Other items from the week's news:

-- The President met with congressional leaders yesterday for a health care summit. Tobin Grant rounds up reactions in his weekly Political Advocacy Tracker for CT.

-- A Texas tax appraisal district will begin exempting a $3.3 million jet owned by Kenneth Copeland Ministries from property taxes.

-- A group of Ohio ministers complained to the Internal Revenue Service that a house on C Street in D.C. connected to the Fellowship should no longer be granted a tax-exempt status granted to a church. Here's more from Laurie Goodstein at The New York Times.

-- New York Gov. David A. Paterson is planning to announce that he will not run for governor in November after revelations of his alleged intervention in a domestic violence episode involving a top aide, The New York Times reports.

-- The Andrews Air Force chaplain's office rescinded their prayer luncheon invitation to Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, CBN's David Brody reports. Perkins had criticized President Obama's call to end "Don't Ask Don't Tell."

-- James Dobson will give his final Focus on the Family broadcast today before he transitions into his new radio show.

-- Obama administration officials will meet with about 60 people from the Secular Coalition for America 10 member groups, including the American Atheists and the Council for Secular Humanism.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at February 26, 2010 11:58AM | Comments (6)

A new report recommends that the Obama administration should make religion an important part of the United State's foreign policy.

"The success of American diplomacy in the next decade will be measured in no small part by its ability to connect with the hundreds of millions of people throughout the world whose identity is defined by religion," the Chicago Council on Global Affairs states in the release.

Notre Dame's Scott Appleby said in a Washington Post video that some people in government feel hand-cuffed in dealing with religion.

"Many scholars and policy makers are very wary of engaging religious communities abroad because they fear that our Constitution prohibits such engagement, and that fear is not well-founded," he said. He also said that for security reasons, the U.S. is engaged with countries that also repress religion.

David Waters blogged and covered the report's release for the Washington Post, reporting that the council met with officials from the State Department and Joshua Dubois, head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

American foreign policy is handicapped by a narrow, ill-informed and "uncompromising Western secularism" that feeds religious extremism, threatens traditional cultures and fails to encourage religious groups that promote peace and human rights, according to a two-year study by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

The council's 32-member task force, which included former government officials and scholars representing all major faiths, delivered its report to the White House on Tuesday. The report warns of a serious "capabilities gap" and recommends that President Obama make religion "an integral part of our foreign policy."

Appleby points out on The Immanent Frame that the Obama administration has yet to fill the position of ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom.

“Religious freedom” is perceived by many peoples around the world, not least Muslims of the Middle East, they argued, not as a universal human right, but as a superpower-charged means of advancing hegemonic U.S. (read: Christian or, worse from their perspective, Judeo-Christian) interests. This particular strain of anti-Americanism is inflamed by isolated episodes of Christian missionaries proselytizing defiantly (or clumsily) in settings where they were manifestly unwelcome, and thereby igniting riots and sometimes deadly violence.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at February 24, 2010 10:05AM | Comments (5)

Focus on the Family founder James Dobson today endorsed Texas Governor Rick Perry for re-election, according to CNN.

Perry faces a primary battle against Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was endorsed by former President George H.W. Bush in January.

"Over the years, Gov. Perry has established a record that is consistently pro-life, pro-marriage and pro-religious liberty," Dobson said in a statement. "No other candidate in this race measures up to the high standards established by Gov. Perry on these critical issues of our day."

In the 2008 election, Dobson endorsed former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in the primaries and later endorsed Arizona Senator John McCain. Dobson retired from his role at Focus on the Family but announced he would begin his own radio show. The Colorado Springs Gazette reported that Dobson's show will begin February 26.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at February 22, 2010 10:30PM | Comments (13)

Former Indiana Senator Dan Coats threw his hat into the ring yesterday and announced his plan to campaign against Indiana Senator Evan Bayh this year.

Democrats quickly began attacking Coats's lobbying background and criticizing his residency in Virginia. In Talking Points Memo style, Marc Ambinder considers other Republicans the Democrats may have to overcome this year, including Roy Blunt of Missouri, Rob Portman of Ohio, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Rob Simmons of Connecticut, Mike Castle of Delaware, Mark Kirk of Illinois, and John Boozman of Arkansas.

Coats served four terms in the House of Representatives before he was appointed to replace Dan Quayle in the Senate when Quayle became vice president. He was elected in 1990 and in 1992 won the seat outright and served as ambassador to Germany under President Bush. Bayh, a former two-term governor, was elected in 1998 to succeed Coats, who chose not to seek re-election then.

Christianity Today wrote about Evan Bayh's possibility as President Obama's vice presidential candidate and spoke with Coats, a graduate of Wheaton College, when he first retired from the Senate.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at February 11, 2010 11:02AM | Comments (6)

In her keynote address at the National Prayer Breakfast last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke openly about Mother Theresa's 1994 prayer breakfast speech when she condemned abortion. After the address, Mother Theresa told Clinton she should start a home for babies, which Clinton said she accomplished after cutting through some red tape. Here's how Clinton told the story:

We began to talk, and she told me that she knew that we had a shared conviction about adoption being vastly better as a choice for unplanned or unwanted babies. And she asked me – or more properly, she directed me – to work with her to create a home for such babies here in Washington. I know that we often picture, as we’re growing up, God as a man with a white beard. But that day, I felt like I had been ordered, and that the message was coming not just through this diminutive woman but from someplace far beyond.

...Finally, the moment came: June, 1995, and the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children opened. She flew in from Kolkata to attend the opening, and like a happy child, she gripped my arm and led me around, looking at the bassinets and the pretty painted colors on the wall, and just beaming about what this meant for children and their futures.

World magazine reporter Emily Belz tried to track down the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children and found that it no longer exists.

According to a pastor at the church next door to the home’s former location, the adoption ministry failed to take off because the Roman Catholic nuns who ran it weren’t allowed to care for babies without medical personnel on site. “I’m not sure the legal thing that came down upon them, but they realized they needed to expend their energies in another way,” said Maureen Freshour, who along with her husband, David, pastors Chevy Chase Baptist Church and lives nearby. Freshour has stayed in touch with the nuns from the Missionaries of Charity order who ran the home and said that the remaining three or four sisters have moved to another house in Washington, where they are ministering to the homeless.

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at February 11, 2010 10:44AM | Comments (3)

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton criticized the anti-homosexuality bill proposed in Uganda while President Obama called it "odious" at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning. Tim Tebow gave the closing prayer. I tweeted a few updates at twitter.com/ctmagazine and posted video from my phone of Obama and Tebow on YouTube.

I spoke briefly with Tebow after the breakfast who was friendly but was whisked away for a meeting. I also passed South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford in the hallway but could not interview him in time before the breakfast.

Below I've posted Obama's remarks as released by the White House.

Thank you so much. Heads of state, Cabinet members, my outstanding Vice President, members of Congress, religious leaders, distinguished guests, Admiral Mullen -- it's good to see all of you. Let me begin by acknowledging the co-chairs of this breakfast, Senators Isakson and Klobuchar, who embody the sense of fellowship at the heart of this gathering. They're two of my favorite senators. Let me also acknowledge the director of my faith-based office, Joshua DuBois, who is here. Where's Joshua? He's out there somewhere. He's doing great work. (Applause.)

I want to commend Secretary Hillary Clinton on her outstanding remarks, and her outstanding leadership at the State Department. She's doing good every day. (Applause.) I'm especially pleased to see my dear friend, Prime Minister Zapatero, and I want him to relay America's greetings to the people of Spain. And Johnny, you are right, I'm deeply blessed, and I thank God every day for being married to Michelle Obama. (Applause.)

I'm privileged to join you once again, as my predecessors have for over half a century. Like them, I come here to speak about the ways my faith informs who I am -- as a President, and as a person. But I'm also here for the same reason that all of you are, for we all share a recognition -- one as old as time -- that a willingness to believe, an openness to grace, a commitment to prayer can bring sustenance to our lives.

There is, of course, a need for prayer even in times of joy and peace and prosperity. Perhaps especially in such times prayer is needed -- to guard against pride and to guard against complacency. But rightly or wrongly, most of us are inclined to seek out the divine not in the moment when the Lord makes His face shine upon us, but in moments when God's grace can seem farthest away.

Last month, God's grace, God's mercy, seemed far away from our neighbors in Haiti. And yet I believe that grace was not absent in the midst of tragedy. It was heard in prayers and hymns that broke the silence of an earthquake's wake. It was witnessed among parishioners of churches that stood no more, a roadside congregation, holding bibles in their laps. It was felt in the presence of relief workers and medics; translators; servicemen and women, bringing water and food and aid to the injured.

One such translator was an American of Haitian descent, representative of the extraordinary work that our men and women in uniform do all around the world -- Navy Corpsman Christian [sic] Brossard. And lying on a gurney aboard the USNS Comfort, a woman asked Christopher: "Where do you come from? What country? After my operation," she said, "I will pray for that country." And in Creole, Corpsman Brossard responded, "Etazini." The United States of America.

God's grace, and the compassion and decency of the American people is expressed through the men and women like Corpsman Brossard. It's expressed through the efforts of our Armed Forces, through the efforts of our entire government, through similar efforts from Spain and other countries around the world. It's also, as Secretary Clinton said, expressed through multiple faith-based efforts. By evangelicals at World Relief. By the American Jewish World Service. By Hindu temples, and mainline Protestants, Catholic Relief Services, African American churches, the United Sikhs. By Americans of every faith, and no faith, uniting around a common purpose, a higher purpose.

It's inspiring. This is what we do, as Americans, in times of trouble. We unite, recognizing that such crises call on all of us to act, recognizing that there but for the grace of God go I, recognizing that life's most sacred responsibility -- one affirmed, as Hillary said, by all of the world's great religions -- is to sacrifice something of ourselves for a person in need.

Sadly, though, that spirit is too often absent when tackling the long-term, but no less profound issues facing our country and the world. Too often, that spirit is missing without the spectacular tragedy, the 9/11 or the Katrina, the earthquake or the tsunami, that can shake us out of complacency. We become numb to the day-to-day crises, the slow-moving tragedies of children without food and men without shelter and families without health care. We become absorbed with our abstract arguments, our ideological disputes, our contests for power. And in this Tower of Babel, we lose the sound of God's voice.

Now, for those of us here in Washington, let's acknowledge that democracy has always been messy. Let's not be overly nostalgic. (Laughter.) Divisions are hardly new in this country. Arguments about the proper role of government, the relationship between liberty and equality, our obligations to our fellow citizens -- these things have been with us since our founding. And I'm profoundly mindful that a loyal opposition, a vigorous back and forth, a skepticism of power, all of that is what makes our democracy work.

And we've seen actually some improvement in some circumstances. We haven't seen any canings on the floor of the Senate any time recently. (Laughter.) So we shouldn't over-romanticize the past. But there is a sense that something is different now; that something is broken; that those of us in Washington are not serving the people as well as we should. At times, it seems like we're unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate. And this erosion of civility in the public square sows division and distrust among our citizens. It poisons the well of public opinion. It leaves each side little room to negotiate with the other. It makes politics an all-or-nothing sport, where one side is either always right or always wrong when, in reality, neither side has a monopoly on truth. And then we lose sight of the children without food and the men without shelter and the families without health care.

Empowered by faith, consistently, prayerfully, we need to find our way back to civility. That begins with stepping out of our comfort zones in an effort to bridge divisions. We see that in many conservative pastors who are helping lead the way to fix our broken immigration system. It's not what would be expected from them, and yet they recognize, in those immigrant families, the face of God. We see that in the evangelical leaders who are rallying their congregations to protect our planet. We see it in the increasing recognition among progressives that government can't solve all of our problems, and that talking about values like responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage are integral to any anti-poverty agenda. Stretching out of our dogmas, our prescribed roles along the political spectrum, that can help us regain a sense of civility.

Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable; understanding, as President [Kennedy] said, that "civility is not a sign of weakness." Now, I am the first to confess I am not always right. Michelle will testify to that. (Laughter.) But surely you can question my policies without questioning my faith, or, for that matter, my citizenship. (Laughter and applause.)

Challenging each other's ideas can renew our democracy. But when we challenge each other's motives, it becomes harder to see what we hold in common. We forget that we share at some deep level the same dreams -- even when we don't share the same plans on how to fulfill them.

We may disagree about the best way to reform our health care system, but surely we can agree that no one ought to go broke when they get sick in the richest nation on Earth. We can take different approaches to ending inequality, but surely we can agree on the need to lift our children out of ignorance; to lift our neighbors from poverty. We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are -- whether it's here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.

Surely we can agree to find common ground when possible, parting ways when necessary. But in doing so, let us be guided by our faith, and by prayer. For while prayer can buck us up when we are down, keep us calm in a storm; while prayer can stiffen our spines to surmount an obstacle -- and I assure you I'm praying a lot these days -- (laughter) -- prayer can also do something else. It can touch our hearts with humility. It can fill us with a spirit of brotherhood. It can remind us that each of us are children of a awesome and loving God.

Through faith, but not through faith alone, we can unite people to serve the common good. And that's why my Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships has been working so hard since I announced it here last year. We've slashed red tape and built effective partnerships on a range of uses, from promoting fatherhood here at home to spearheading interfaith cooperation abroad. And through that office we've turned the faith-based initiative around to find common ground among people of all beliefs, allowing them to make an impact in a way that's civil and respectful of difference and focused on what matters most.

It is this spirit of civility that we are called to take up when we leave here today. That's what I'm praying for. I know in difficult times like these -- when people are frustrated, when pundits start shouting and politicians start calling each other names -- it can seem like a return to civility is not possible, like the very idea is a relic of some bygone era. The word itself seems quaint -- civility.

But let us remember those who came before; those who believed in the brotherhood of man even when such a faith was tested. Remember Dr. Martin Luther King. Not long after an explosion ripped through his front porch, his wife and infant daughter inside, he rose to that pulpit in Montgomery and said, "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend."

In the eyes of those who denied his humanity, he saw the face of God.

Remember Abraham Lincoln. On the eve of the Civil War, with states seceding and forces gathering, with a nation divided half slave and half free, he rose to deliver his first Inaugural and said, "We are not enemies, but friends… Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection."

Even in the eyes of confederate soldiers, he saw the face of God.

Remember William Wilberforce, whose Christian faith led him to seek slavery's abolition in Britain; he was vilified, derided, attacked; but he called for "lessening prejudices [and] conciliating good-will, and thereby making way for the less obstructed progress of truth."

In the eyes of those who sought to silence a nation's conscience, he saw the face of God.

Yes, there are crimes of conscience that call us to action. Yes, there are causes that move our hearts and offenses that stir our souls. But progress doesn't come when we demonize opponents. It's not born in righteous spite. Progress comes when we open our hearts, when we extend our hands, when we recognize our common humanity. Progress comes when we look into the eyes of another and see the face of God. That we might do so -- that we will do so all the time, not just some of the time -- is my fervent prayer for our nation and the world.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

Posted by Sarah Pulliam Bailey at February 4, 2010 11:07AM | Comments (18)