- A French Lutheran couple has started a blog about their walk from Erfurt, Germany to Rome (following Luther's own trail), in an effort to improve Catholic-Protestant relations. (Here I Walk via Tammeus)
- I wouldn't ordinarily include this but it's fun to imagine the religious implications of a civilization or even forms of life literally alien to our own. A new planet with the potential to sustain life has been discovered. If you think Columbian arrival in the New World is responsible for the growth of a number of religions, just wait. (Discovery)
- Why pray for famed, reviled, and respected atheist Christopher Hitchens to recover from cancer? A bunch of Texan religious leaders offer their thoughts. One pretty touching reflection on Hitchens from Jonathan Tran, Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics, Department of Religion at Baylor University: "Too bad this person isn't a Christian; he'd be a good one."(DMN)
- Yep, religious Americans are lacking in their knowledge about religion, as compared to atheists and agnostics. (Pew)
- In the meantime, people (some of whom wouldn't describe themselves as religious, like the person in this story's lede) are increasingly interested in studying religion. (BuffaloNews)
- CNN's Rick Sanchez is off the air after calling Jon Stewart a bigot, among other comments. (WSJ via GetReligion)
Religionography
A.C. Valdez writes about faith, religion, ethics, and related news.
October 4, 2010
Religion News for 10/4/2010
Challenging Islamophobia: Liveblog
Today I'm liveblogging a panel at the Center for American Progress titled "Challenging Islamophobia: The Role of Civic and Faith Groups in Combating Anti-Muslim Hate Speech and Crimes." Here's a list of the participants:
Moderated by:
Faiz Shakir, Vice President and Editor of Think Progress (CAP Action)
Featured panelists:
Wajahat Ali, playwright, essayist, humorist, and attorney
Haris Tarin, Washington, D.C. Office Director, Muslim Public Affairs Council
Rev. Chloe Breyer, Executive Director, Interfaith Center of New York and Episcopal Priest, Diocese of New York
Ken Gude, Managing Director of National Security and International Policy, Center for American Progress
These types of panels are a sort of outreach attempt by think tanks like CAP, The New America Foundation, CATO, and others. It's a kind of interesting attempt by people who make policy to try to invite in the public. I have my doubts as to how much the policymakers actually are influenced by the audience input at these kinds of events, but it's at least an interesting thought. The room where this is taking place is pretty full, only a couple of empty seats.
As a side note, it's a wonderful thing that this panel has at least one Christian in the panel.
- Shakir talks about a discussion last week on ABC's This Week. The topic was "Should Americans be afraid of Islam?"
- Ali cites a statistic that says 60 percent of Americans don't know a Muslim...so going only on recent history, he doesn't blame most people for being afraid. Ergo, we need to get to know each other better to eliminate fear.
- Tarin talks about people who buy into the idea of a clash of civilizations promoting that idea actively: Frank Gafney, Pamela Gellar, people "who have no credentials" who have been given a platform to speak about Islam. According to him, it's these people who want to exclude and are against American pluralism.
- Rev. Breyer works with people of about 16 different faiths to work on issues like foreclosuers, education, etc. She seems to see interfaith support networks as a powerful counter-balance to things like "Burn A Quran Day."
- Another important point by Breyer: there's a real need for people to be asked questions on topics they're ignorant about without fear of being called bigots. Pretty much true of any religion.
- Gude talks about the pastor who was going to burn the Quran being big news in the Muslim world before it was news here. This in spite of the fact that that pastor has 50 congregants...what a clear example of relatively small actions having huge implications in the Internet era.
- Tarin: "The Muslim-American community sees itself as an American body."
- Ali gets talking about Park 51 (the "Ground Zero Mosque")...gives the media credit for being actually pretty fair about the issue.
- Another good point by Ali about the pre-9/11 media cycle of Muslim-related stories, starting back in 1979: Islamic revolution, violence somewhere else, reaction, no story about Muslims, Gulf War, violence, war, victory, no story about Muslims, 1993 bombing of WTC, anger, no story about Muslims...
- Tarin: If you've never met a Muslim, the idea of jihad, or Muslim prayer, or shariah, or any other Muslim concept, is abstract to you...those people who only have Google to rely on are receiving distorted information at best.
- Question asked: there's a push by some people, such as the Tea Party and some other xenophobes to view American culture and identity as Christian...how do you combat that? Ali answers: get more voices of not "white, Christian, middle class" people out there, and create non-Muslim allies, people like Jon Stewart, Kanye West.
- Breyer points out that in the 1830s, there were similar arguments about Catholicism not being a religion. It takes time to integrate.
- Tarin: African-American Muslim experience goes far back and shouldn't be ignored...25% of slaves brought to US were Muslim.
- Ali: storytelling is what will ultimately unite us, you need a Cosby Show, or a Dave Chappelle, you need to illuminate the ordinary and do in one year what 10 years worth of policy papers can do.
May 25, 2010
Religion News Roundup 5/25/2010
- Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged the need for reform within the Catholic Church, and a great deal of self-examination. The Dallas Morning News put out an interesting series of blurbs by local faith leaders regarding Benedict's reflection.
- A friend of mine (and former colleague) is working to get African-American non-religious "out of the closet."
- It's been a rough week or so for the Saudi "morality police," or Mutaween.
- Get Religion does its usual excellent job predicting the religious and political fallout of a repealed "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy.
- American Catholic women are just about as likely as any American woman to terminate a pregnancy via abortion. Why? Because they're otherwise just like other Americans. (CNNvia Pew)
- Here's some interesting reading from Sojourners about (the biblical) Ruth...as an illegal immigrant. There are some very good points made about choosing compassion over law.
- In a seeming coincidence of the last two points I posted above, a nun (and others, presumably) have been excommunicated for performing an abortion to save a woman's life. (Politics Daily)
May 18, 2010
Quote of the Day
May 8, 2010
Consume Carefully: Jeans, Part II
I'll bet you think I forgot to hunt for a new pair of jeans. Well, I've been taking time to do some research, and have been admittedly pretty busy. But first, my official response from the earlier note I sent Levi's about their jeans and sourcing:
Hi A.C.,
Lilia here from Levi's(R). Thanks for checking in with us.
Levi Strauss & Co. is an international company with offices and production facilities all over the world, including the USA. In order to remain competitive and ensure that consumers receive the best value, we do manufacture many of our products offshore. All of our manufacturing facilities worldwide comply with high quality production standards and sourcing guidelines.
For more information on our global sourcing guidelines, please check out our Social Responsibility and Sourcing Guidelines at our corporate website at www.LeviStrauss.com.
Thanks again,
Lilia
Levi Strauss & Co.
Consumer Relations
April 19, 2010
Supreme Silliness
But I found one part of this article utterly ridiculous, and haven't been able to get it out of my head. Here goes:
'The practical reality of life in America is that religion plays much less of a role in everyday life than it did 50 or 100 years ago,'' said Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago. Adding a Protestant to the court, he said, would not bring an important element to its discussions.With due respect to folks who have far greater expertise than I on the Supreme Court, I think this is silliness. To say that we live in a post-religious society is as unrealistic as to say that President Obama's election solved racism. Not that there aren't people saying that too.''These days,'' said Lee Epstein, a law professor at Northwestern and an authority on the court, ''we've moved to other sources of diversity,'' including race, gender and ethnicity.'
I say this because I can already imagine the round the clock paranoid coverage were a Supreme Court nominee, say, Muslim. Heck, while we're at it, let's speculate on the combination of paranoia, curiosity, and hate that would be generated by a Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, or other religious minority.
Furthermore I would argue something about this:
"religion, which once mattered deeply, has fallen out of the conversation. And it seems to make people uncomfortable on the rare occasions it is raised."It seems, simply, to be a contradiction in terms. What makes us most uncomfortable perhaps matters the most deeply.
March 8, 2010
Consume Carefully: A.C. buys a pair of jeans...maybe.
I'd like to buy a pair of jeans in good conscience. Can you help me out by telling me who makes your jeans, domestic or imported, and what kind of labor standards Levis are made in accordance with? Do you subcontract with independent producers or do you directly supervise the production of your clothes? Where are they made?I'm expecting a pretty standard response, assuring me that there are no sweatshops or other worker exploitation. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to do some checking of other kinds before taking Levi's word about. I'll post the company's response when I get it. And before I buy, I'll be telling you about what I'm reading on the company's history with sweatshops.
January 15, 2010
Religion News Roundup (January 15 2010)
- The writing of the Bible may have started a lot earlier than scholars previously thought. (Haaretz)
- The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has recently been full of useful statistics about beliefs and attitudes in the U.S. 16.1% of US adults identify as "unaffiliated." Does this mean a lot of agnostics/atheists, or that a significant number of people are fed up with religious organizations?
- Also worth seeing: How religious is your state? (Pew) and the increasingly common mixture of faiths (Pew).
- The recent battle over gay marriage here in D.C. (my hometown) has been leaving many questioning whether the Catholic Church is too influential, or at least, trying to be. Now, a Washington Post guest columnist is asking the same question over a different topic: the healthcare debate. (WaPo).
January 8, 2010
Seeking Interfaith Understanding
There's a piece online from TIME right now about Malaysia's High Court ruling that the word Allah is not exclusive to Muslims. This allows Christian (and presumably other faiths) to publish the word in their newsletters, and claim that Allah is their god as well, apparently a controversial statement because of the country's religious/ethnic makeup.
Some 60% of Malaysia's 28 million people are Malay Muslim, while the rest are ethnic Chinese, Indians and indigenous tribes, practicing various faiths including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism and animism. Among Christians, the majority Catholics number about 650,000, or 3% of the population.I know little about the Malay language but the Catholic Church in Malaysia has apparently been using Allah in its Bibles and otherwise for a long while, and in a court case in 2008 cited pre-Islamic use of the term.
But the point missed here by many parties seems to be that as Abrahamic faiths, there is a common god, regardless of names. As the latter part of the TIME article describes, the fact that the Muslim community is so strongly opposed is one of a series of worrying incidents of intolerance in Malaysia. It seems, to me, a missed opportunity for understanding and dialogue.
October 6, 2009
Religion News for 10/6/2009
- The Supreme Court will allow documents from the cases of sex abuse by Catholic priests to go public. (NPR)
- An Italian scientist has reproduced the Shroud of Turin, which is suspected to be (by some, at least) a medieval forgery. (Reuters)
- A former military lawyer is suing so people won't pray for his harm, among other threats. (USAT)
- Brother Ali is a rapper who draws inspiration from Islam. (NPR)