Religion News for 10/4/2010

Hey I just wanted to let you all know something I found out at today's panel before I put up today's news roundup: Open Mosque Week is coming up soon. I hope I see a lot more of this kind of thing in the future. Nice to see this as a counter to the awful drama of Burn A Quran Day. Can anybody recommend a mosque to visit in DC?

Anyhow, here's some stuff you might have missed:

• 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)

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.

image by muslim page

Religion News Roundup 5/25/2010

Hello readers! Here's what you may have missed in recent religion news:

• 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)

Quote of the Day

Van Jones, via a radio/web producer friend:

When it gets harder to love, love HARDER.

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

My hunch is that this is probably some kind of doublespeak. It's only natural that Levi's would want to make themselves look responsible by directing me to their guidelines--something the average consumer is unlikely to take the time to read. I'm quite suspicious of policies that are non-governmentally enforced, and Harper's Magazine gave me some good reason to back up that suspicion. Please read Ken Silverstein's excellent investigative piece.

I also got a friendly reminder from careful consumption sage Reverend Billy, who was quick to point out that by not shopping for used clothes, I'm entering an economy that's by nature less sustainable, responsible, humane, and possibly a rip-off in the long run. To be continued...

photo by photos8.com

Supreme Silliness

The notable lack of religious diversity on the Supreme court is a pretty old and tired topic. If you didn't already know, there are now, with the retirement of John Paul Stevens, only Catholics and Jews on the court.Stevens was the only Protestant, as this article in the New York Times points out.
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.

''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.'

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.

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.

Consume Carefully: A.C. buys a pair of jeans...maybe.

Though I regard this blog as a place to talk about religion, it's important to remember the reasons for religious beliefs and underlying practices which make us good humanists, Christians, Hindus, or otherwise. In that vein I submit the following:

Every once in a while I have to shop for clothes. It's a process I despise thoroughly because, more than my food-eating habits, it's something that I feel puts a lot of weight on my conscience. When you go to Wal-Mart or Target, it's pretty rare to pause to think about the hands that put together your $5/3 pair socks. But you should.

Long story short, sometime soon I want to buy some jeans. I want them to be kind of nice and don't mind paying a couple of extra bucks this time. That means (probably) buying new instead of going to a thrift store, which I do more often than buying new clothes. I seem to remember Levi's as a brand you could trust to be decent and non-exploitative of their workers, domestic or foreign. And what could be more American than a USA-made pair of jeans, produced by well compensated and satisfied factory workers? But I shop so rarely, I couldn't remember whether Levi's actually checked out.

So I sent their customer service department the following email:

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.

*P.S. If you're looking for some really good reading on this topic, I suggest you look to Naomi Klein's classic investigation of manufacturing and branding, No Logo.

Religion News Roundup (January 15 2010)

Hello readers,

Here's what's been going on in religion recently:

• 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).

Have a great Martin Luther King Day weekend!

Seeking Interfaith Understanding

Quick Housekeeping Note: I'm back and blogging it up again in 2010, so happy new year. With my current work schedule it's just to hard to keep doing the daily religion news summary, but I will make an effort to have at least one news summary a week from now on, as well as more regular in-depth commentary about religion stories I'm finding interesting. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

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.