More serious than LA's cross in the seal

The ACLU has launched a court battle against the school board in Bossier City, Louisiana, alleging that children at one elementary school "were being teased because they refused to participate in activities like Christmas caroling at nursing homes"; the school "displayed a nativity scene in the library during the holidays"; and a teacher-led group called "'Stallions for Christ' ...promotes 'Christian fellowship and prayer' ...during recess."

These activities do seem to fail the "coercion" test established by the Supreme Court (via Sandra Day O'Connor).

This is rich.

A press release from the Saudi Embassy announces that "Saudi Arabia's senior religious scholars have issued a fatwa condemning acts of terrorism and calling upon citizens and residents to provide authorities with any information they may have regarding those who plan or prepare to carry out terrorist acts."

As I recall, there were more than a few suspicious-looking Saudis last seen boarding flights at Boston's Logan Airport on September 11, 2001. (No Afghanis or Iraqis, though.)

Avineri on Turkey and the EU

"To imagine the EU as an exclusively Christian club is a political and historical blunder as well as a moral failure. That it is French statesmen - from Valery Giscard d'Estaing to Jacques Chirac - who appear to lead the anti-Turkish camp at a time when France sees its secularism threatened by Muslim headscarves in school reeks of the worst kind of hypocrisy."

Catholic Charites, Contraception, and Bill Cork

Bill Cork, via his Lincoln & Liberty blog, responds to my assessment of the Catholic Charities appeal of the California Supreme Court's deicision regarding the 1999 Women's Contraceptive Equality Act.

Bill writes, "This is not about tax exemption, which is admittedly not required by the constitution. Rather, this is about restriction of free exercise. This law says Catholic institutions that don't do what the state defines as 'religion' must go against Catholic teaching and must pay for contraceptives and abortafacients."

Catholic Charities' tax exemption is not at issue here; Bill is right about this. However, it is about whether state interests--and if so, which state interests--outweigh religious freedom claims.

Bill argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should invalidate the entire law based on a free exercise claim--specifically, Catholic Charities' right not to pay for procedures contrary to its religious beliefs. That's an option for the Court, but not a likely one. For instance, it is settled precedent that landlords may not refuse to rent to those of other religious faiths. Moreover, Antonin Scalia himself wrote the 1990 Hialea decision granting the state considerable leeway in subordinating religious preferences to state interests. And it's not only about restricting practices, but also about requiring them. Courts consistently have ruled that Christian Scientists, for instance, must provide medical treatment for their children, even thought it might contradict their religious beliefs.

The Court's task in this case will be to weigh one public good (sex/gender parity) against another public good (religious freedom). It may sidestep the issue, as Bill suggests, by finding that contraception is not part of the parity equation, but I doubt it will do so. I suspect Catholic Charities will lose its appeal, either through a decision, or (more likely) through the Court's refusal to take up the case.

Emmerich beatification roundup, in which the ADL adds fuel to the fire....

The Jerusalem Post reports that the Anti-Defamation League's Abraham Foxman is at it again, this time suggesting that the beatification of Anne Catherine Emmerich means that the Vatican doesn't care about antisemitism and that it is going to harm Christian-Jewish relations.

The ADL press release is available here.

Kudos to the American Jewish Committee's David Rosen, whom the JPost interviewed:

"Making public statements or revealing communications to the press does not help difficulties," commented Rabbi David Rosen, international interfaith director of the American Jewish Committee, on the ADL letter. Noting that Emmerich's beatification process had begun before the Gibson movie came out, and that according to Catholic doctrine even saints are not considered perfect, rather worthy of emulation, Rosen urged Jews "to realize that they are not always the reason or the object of every Vatican decision."

Nonetheless, Rosen also thought it would be insensitive for the Vatican to go ahead with the canonization process at this time.

Let me be clear on this: through its allegations and insinuations, the ADL is contributing to antisemitism, not combatting it. I hope that more leaders within the Jewish community will show the courage that the AJC's Rabbi Rosen and distance themselves from the ADL's counterproductive behavior.

Bill Cork is trenchant as usual on the subject: "One might have thought that if there were any lessons to be learned from 'The Passion' controversy, one stands out above all others: ADL press releases at times inflame situations rather than help."

Travelling today ..more tomorrow....

In the meantime, check out the archives or one of the blogs in the Blogroll!

The Cross in the Seal

Reason's Cathy Young reviews the Los Angeles County cross-on-the seal controversy for The Boston Glob and faults the ACLU, mostly.

Even as she defends "the principle that religious beliefs should not be imposed on public policy," she argues that the ACLU is doing "precisely the kind of thing that gives secularism a bad name." While I disagree with her that the way to fight religious extremists on the other side of the spectrum who suffer from a "religious persecution complex" is to let little issues like "a tiny cross on a county seal or Christmas decorations at a firehouse" slide, she makes a more potent point with her suggestion that the ACLU was not following the current state of the law:

Under existing legal precedent, for instance, an image of the Ten Commandments in a court building is acceptable as long as it is accompanied by other images. A figure of Moses with the two tablets is part of a frieze at the US Supreme Court building -- along with the figures of other historical lawgivers, including Confucius and Hammurabi. The Ten Commandments sculpture in the Alabama courthouse stood alone.
By this standard, the cross on the offending seal certainly should have passed muster. The largest and central image on the seal is that of Pomona, ancient Roman goddess of gardens and fruit trees. As some have caustically pointed out, no one has claims that her depiction endorses paganism.
Other images include the Hollywood Bowl, a cow, a Spanish galleon, and three oil derricks that dwarf the cross and are placed directly above it. (Maybe one could detect a certain symbolism in that, but it wouldn't be a very reverent symbolism.)

Wahhabism vs. Islam

Mona Eltahawy writes in The Washington Post that "It is long past time for Muslims to question the Wahhabi ideology that is pulling the rug out from under Saudi life"." She notes that while Wahhabis helped to bring the Saudi royal family to power, they now are trying to overthrow that regime, even as Wahhabi-influenced senior clerics continue to impose ever more stringent rules on the populace.

But Neil MacFarquhar notes in The New York Times that "the attempt by some to expose and uproot the ideological and theocratic influences used to justify attacks was suppressed by the religious establishment, which helped the Saud family consolidate its rule when the kingdom was founded more than 70 years ago. Instead, the official line became that the terrorists were infected with an alien ideology, imported by those who fought in Afghanistan or Chechnya, and that the religion espoused by Saudis is a peaceful one."

Nonetheless, he sees some signs of change:

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, published an extraordinary article Tuesday in Al Watan, a newspaper run by the descendants of King Faisal, in which he called the domestic Saudi effort against terrorism feeble.

The prince noted the long history of violent opposition to mainstream Islam arising on the Arabian peninsula from the time of the Prophet Muhammad through the 1920's, when a band of religious zealots mutinied against King Abdel Aziz, Bandar's grandfather and the founder of the kingdom, for being insufficiently devout.

'It has nothing to do with America or Israel or the Christians or Jews,' Prince Bandar wrote. 'So let us stop these meaningless justifications for what those criminals are doing and let us stop blaming others while the problem comes from within us.'

Elsewhere in the article he noted that the kingdom's religious scholars 'have to declare jihad against those deviants and to fully support it, as those who keep silent about the truth are mute devils.'"

Religious nationalism is alive and well among Slovakia's Roman Catholic bishops.

Slovakia's SME reports (in Slovak) that a pastoral letter from the Slovakia's Roman Catholic bishops regarding the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament will be read in churches throughout the country tomorrow. The letter, which is available here, argues that Slovakia has a "identity [both] religious & national" and should be represented in the European Parliament only by people who respect "Christian values," namely, Christians.

The Slovak bishops write that "we must try to do everything we can not to bring shame on Slovakia." Perhaps, then, they should spend less time writing religious-nationalist pastoral letters and spend more time listening to their episcopal colleagues in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere who seem to understand the concepts of religious and political pluralism rather better.

Catholic or Charity?

Bill Cork, posting to his Lincoln & Liberty blog, argues that the federal "appeal of a California Supreme Court decision holding that Catholic Charities of Sacramento is not a religious institution and as such must provide coverage of contraceptives for its workers" should be a "no-brainer" for the Supreme Court because "California has sought to restrict religious liberty; it has arrogated to itself the power to define what is or is not religion; it has presumed to tell the Diocese of Sacramento that Catholic Charities has nothing to do with Catholic charity."

But there's another issue at stake. The law in question, the 1999 Women's Contraceptive Equality Act exempts 'religious employers' from its requirements. The Act "defines those as nonprofit institutions directly involved in inculcating religious beliefs, and whose employees and beneficiaries of services are primarily members of the faith group."

The California Supreme Court ruled that Catholic Charities "does not qualify as a religious employer because it offers secular services to the public without regard for the recipients' beliefs and without preaching about Catholic values. Catholics do not make up either a majority of its employees or a majority of the recipients of its services."

Bill is correct that the California Supreme Court decision privileges "preaching" and "values" over "action" and "service" in its definition of religion, and he is correct to criticize that approach to the definition of the "religious."

However, there is another appellate solution: invalidating the exemption all together. Indeed, the problem lies not in the California Supreme Court's definition of religion, but rather in the State's definition of "religious employer" as necessarily involving the "inculcation" of "religious beliefs" to a group's "own members." Far more consistent and effective--and admittedly far more damaging to the interests of Catholic Charities--would be simply to overturn the exemption on the grounds that any kind of differentiation with respect to religion is unconstitutional.

Then, of course, Catholic Charities would have to choose whether it wishes the benefits of tax exemption and taxpayer support or the certitude of adherence to the rules and regulations of the Roman Catholic Church.

'Civic, Democratic Islam'?

Yoginder Sikand charges that "America is desperately scouting around for 'liberal' Muslim allies who can sell an alternate vision and version of Islam that fits into the American scheme of things" and cites as Exhibit A a 2003 RAND Corporation study, entitled "Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies," which ignores "the roots of the phenomenon, particularly the issue of Western hegemony to which radical Islamism is, at least in part, a response ...[as well as] American neo-colonialism or Western support for dictatorial regimes in many Muslim countries."

While the RAND essay does suffer from ahistoricism, its purpose--to argue for Western support of "modernists" and "reformist traditionalists" within Islam--is transparent and difficult to criticize. Political leaders have used (and abused) religions for their own ends--and indeed shaped religious traditions--since politics and religion began. Indeed, my attention to Frederick of Saxony's Pervez Musharraf's call for Islamic reform is predicated on the theoretical assumption that Muslims will not confront their extremist wings until Muslim political leaders create an environment within which such a confrontation can take place--and that will not happen unless those leaders believe it is in their interests. Such was the case with Frederick of Saxony and Martin Luther; such, I believe, is the case with the leadership in Pakistan and Malaysia vis à vis Muslim reformers.

Ten Commandments Court Battle in East Tennessee

The folks at Knoxville's "Volunteer TV" Channel 8 don't seem quite to understand the separation of church and state. "Surrounding the Ten Commandments with historical documents, creating more of a historical display" doesn't solve the underlying issue and may in fact exacerbate the problem by creating an even stronger impression that Monroe County explicitly identifies with one particular religious tradition.

Emmerich beatification roundup

The Washington Post has the Emmerich story on page B8 of today's edition, but it's a reprint of the original Reuters piece.

Still no post-Passion public criticism of the move, despite NewsMax.com's unfounded claim to the contrary.

I am given to understand that there have been private communications to the Vatican regarding the matter, but no organization--Christian, Jewish, or otherwise--has stepped forward to offer any public criticisms.

Religion and politics -- literally

Via The Revealer, Godspy reprints a Commonweal Magazine essay in which William Cavanaugh argues that "the problem ..is a fundamental inability of many U.S. Catholics and other Christians to imagine being out of step with the American nation-state."

He's right -- which is why this makes me uncomfortable, especially the assertion that one group of U.S. senators "voted more in line with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) positions" than did another group. (The Durbin report is available here.)

Heaven forfend that religious considerations and political considerations should proceed according to different assumptions and different logics.

Isn't it ironic

The English-language Saudi Arab News says it's "Time to Rescue Islam From Islamists."

Physician, heal thyself.

GetReligion: Report from Canada: The sanctity of common (Anglican) words

Terry Mattingly's discomfort with the decision of the Anglican Church of Canada to "affirm the integrity and sanctity of committed adult same-sex relationships" in this GetReligion: Report from Canada: The sanctity of common (Anglican) words, but his larger point is worth noting: that the use of the word "sanctity" largely undermines the point of the study commission that the Church had just set up.

Mattingly doesn't do the etymology, but I looked it up. Merriam-Webster Online defines "sanctity" as follows:

Etymology: Middle English saunctite, from Middle French saincteté, from Latin sanctitat-, sanctitas, from sanctus sacred
1 : holiness of life and character : GODLINESS
2a : the quality or state of being holy or sacred : INVIOLABILITY
2b plural : sacred objects, obligations, or rights

As Mattingly notes, the term clearly has theological import. The decision by a religious group to ascribe holiness or sacrality to "committed adult same-sex relationships" prima facie means that the religious group finds such relationships consistent with its religious doctrines and ethics.

For what it's worth "integrity," too, when used by a religious group, clearly has a religious connotation, according to Merriam-Webster Online, insofar as it refers to "firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values."

Canadian Anglican supporters of same-sex unions now should move forward with formal church blessings of those unions, as such acts are entirely consistent with this resolution. Opponents of same-sex unions might encourage the Church to reconsider the resolution as a whole. But supporters and opponents alike of religious blessings of same-sex unions should agree that the Anglican Church of Canada is kidding itself if it thinks it has left the matter unresolved.

And for what it's worth, my original point remains the same: this resolution, like the earlier "study commission" resolution, effectively removes the Church of Canada from meaningful participation in any public debate over same-sex civil unions, which now are legal in Canada.

(Full disclosure: I am on the board of Mosaic: The National Jewish Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, which should give some indication of where I stand on some of these issues. However, within the Jewish contexts, I am (like gay orthodox rabbi Steve Greenberg and straight Reform scholar Rachel Adler) unconvinced that same-sex unions should be sanctified using the same ritual and legal concepts as opposite-sex unions, specifically erusin, kidushin, and the ketubah, which is based on contract law and theories of asymmetrical exchange. Moreover, I acknowledge that there are a wide range of other perspectives within Judaism and I would not presume to involve myself in the theological debates of other faiths. That said, I am an advocate of consistency, irrespective of religious adherence.)

"The moral politics of suffering"? Oh, please.

Maybe the Archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of Delhi needs to go back to seminary for a refresher course in Christian-Jewish relations. There are better ways to defend The Passion against its critics than this:

People have expressed a fear that the film could incite anti-Jew sentiments. They forget that Jesus himself was a Jew, so were his Apostles, Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. When the perpetrators of injustice and the sufferer are all Jews, where is the question of anti-Jew feelings? In fact, at one point in the film, some Jews are shown protesting against Jesus’ trial proceedings. This is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible. Perhaps Gibson included this scene to pre-empt this very criticism.
Some people have said that the cruelty of the Roman soldiers in the film could turn people against Romans. This is an irrelevant argument. Who thinks of Italians as Romans these days? Besides, there are numerous films about Hitler’s atrocities against Jews. Surely there’s no likelihood of such films inciting anti-Christian feelings because Hitler happened to be a Christian.

Memo to Archibsohp Concessao.
1. Re-read the Gospel of John. Members of the Great Assembly (or the Temple Court, depending on how you read the text) protested Jesus's show trial.

2. Read a biography of Hitler. He wasn't a Christian. He hated Christians. He just didn't kill as many of them as he killed Jews. Linking The Passion and the Holocaust the way you do simply is offensive.

3. Don't stop with using archaic language like "anti-Jew." Tell us how you really feel. Or have you ever even met a Jew? Some of your boss's best friends (not to mention your Boss Himself*) are Jews, by the way.

(*) No clear evidence about his Father, but Mary definitely was Jewish, and the mother is who counts.

Politics change; faith is constant

Sage commentary via the CT Weblog from the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Evangelicals and Catholics redux

The CT Weblog offers a helpful clarification to the recent New York Times story on evangelicals and Catholics.

Although much of the clarification is helpful CT still doesn't deal with the issues that I raised about its communion editorial, nor does it really clear up my question of whether or not the evangelical-Catholic connection goes beyond a shallow comfort level.

Nonetheless, evangelicals and Catholics alike should take note of the "passenger van problems" that the CT weblog covers in the same edition.

That's gotta hurt, but then it was all about the pain.

A few months after ceding the #1 box-office slot to Hellboy The Passion's opening-day record was shattered by the ogres of Shrek 2, notes jewsweek's Yada Blog:

Shrek slays Jesus. Film at 11.
Thank God for Shrek. The animated film unseated Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ as the strongest opening for a film in 2004 beating The Passion's $89.3 million opening weekend grosses with $129 million. ...This must be great news for Shrek 2's Orthodox screenwriter David Weiss.

That headline's just going to reignite the deicide charge, though.

Bush Late for Vatican Meeting With Pope

President Bush arrived 15 minutes late for his meeting with Pope John Paul II — unusual for a president who makes no secret of his impatience when others keep him waiting.

Wow.

No kampf in sight for Hitler's royalties

jewsweek's Yada Blog takes note of a Reuters story that a distant relative of Adolf Hitler has declined to sue for the royalties from Mein Kampf.

Could he not be persuaded to donate the royalties in perpetuity to an appropriate memorial or compensation or education fund? I don't see why the publishers making money off of Mein Kampf should get to hang on to all the cash.

Cole on Clancy on Wolfowitz

Juan Cole quotes Tom Clancy asking whether Paul Wolfowitz "is working for our side."

Given the recent Zinni & Hollings allegations, it would be troubling to hear rumblings among conservative U.S. nationalists that America and Israel are not on the same "side."

That said, I have feared such a moment might come ever since George Bush committed himself to Ariel Sharon's unilateralist and expansionist vision of Israell and the Middle East. Admittedly, I thought the anti-Israel sentiment would emerge from parents and grandparents angry at losing their soldier-children to deaths for a foreign cause, not from political pundits. Maybe that'll come next week.

No longer a prolegomena, not quite a prelude

Saxony Pakistan continues its proto-Reformation: "Ulema belonging to different schools of thought have issued a Fatwa (religious decree) declaring that any individual or group which tend to kill the innocent citizens- Muslims or non-Muslims- or attack the Mosques and Imambargahs are excluded from the circle of Islam, and such people have no right to be called Muslim."

Does Malta have Israeli-style marriage laws?

Apparently Malta--a predominantly Roman Catholic country--has marriage laws dictated by Canon Law, at least according to this article in the Malta Independent Daily , in which interviewee Chris Darville complains, "...Because of the rules dictated by a particular religious group in Malta, I am unable to marry my partner, whom I love very much. The laws of religion do not permit her to remarry."

It seems that Malta is one of three two nations in the world that do not recognize divorce; as such, Mr. Darville's partner is considered still-married. I wonder about her "ex"-husband....

New Jew Manifesto

Mobius @ jewschool links to this "
New Jew Manifesto": "Old Jews say: they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat. New Jews say: we are the post-anti-semitism generation. We don’t want to predicate our identity on taking our collective mind off our tsures by having something to eat, on an if-you-don’t-laugh-you’ll cry basis. Would you like to sponsor my yogathon raising money for a new cross-denominational Jewish project?

...Old Jews visit Poland, and pay their respects at Auschwitz. New Jews go to Cracow, and play the violin....

...If you’re a New Jew, you know you have five thousand years of Jewish history resting on your shoulders, but you’re not going let it, like, depress you. You’re going to take everything that’s good from your heritage and turn it into something that responds to the new world. That’s the New Jew."

Do New Jews still say, "Amen?"

Good Versus Evil, as frequently and as bloodily as possible

Via The Revealer, Stephen Chan of nthposition argues that "in the post-9/11 world, we have all become Manichean - concerned with a huge confrontation between two empires, two faiths, two ideologies, each with the same vision of each other."

To be sure, the success of The Passion and The DaVinci Code reflects a triumph of Gnosticism, of which Manicheanism is one stream. This ahistorical dualistic apocalypticism is really something, isn't it?

Yes, Virginia, coming-of-age rituals are universal

There's no reason their parents can't offer bar and bat mitzvah testimonials at regular intervals and no reason their children can't return the favor, offering proof that they are coming of age as they come of age..

On the catholicity of the Catholics

James Pinkerton complains that "there is only one Catholic Church." He "happily" observes that "in their spiritual sphere, Jews and Protestants have a choice. More conservative Jews can join Orthodox congregations, while liberal Jews can join Reform congregations. Conservative Protestants can become Southern Baptists, while liberal Protestants can become Episcopalians."

This is an implicit endorsement of religious fragmentation and narcissism. Pinkerton wants "voters who happen to be Catholic ...to vote their personal preferences and consciences, even if that means the disappearance of the 'Catholic vote'."

What about the notion that Catholic voters, who are just as capable of thinking for themselves as anyone else, might simply think through what they believe and thus, through their votes for Democratic and Republican candidates up and down the ballot, express the catholicity of their religious commitment?

Shouldn't it be "Voting patterns closely tied to churchgoing"?

Ruy Teixeira provides some much-needed balance to USA Today story that seems to have its dependent and independent variables mixed up. I suspect it's rather more likely that people vote their values than that they theologize their votes!

Another kinship model

Roger Ailes describes a new form of in vitro fertilization that involves 2 female genetic donors, that is with DNA from more than one "mother." No doubt this will be fodder for anthropologists and give family court judges some very big headaches.

Emmerich beatification roundup

Reuters has a longer story linking Emmerich's writings and Gibson's Passion. (I thought I had linked to this already, but apparently not.)

Traveling....

En route to my college reunion, so limited posting until Tuesday evening.

Malaysian PM reiterates call for moderates to reclaim Islam

Muslims must work to regain dignity and honour of Islam, says PM: "Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has urged Muslims to unite to regain Islam’s dignity and honour by confronting and discrediting militant teachings. "

A clergy scandal in the making....

"To keep monks from wagering on football, senior monks will propose the Sangha Supreme Council enforce monastic regulations against gambling when the Euro 2004 tournament kicks off June 12."

Apparently The Cup was a whitewash.... ;-)

Studying Islamic finance at the U.S. Treasury

The UPI reports that the U.S. Treasury [has] appointed its first Islamic finance scholar-in-residence. ...The scholar will promote broader awareness of Islamic finance practices internationally and domestically for U.S. policymakers, Treasury said.

This is an important step. Islamic law takes an approach to finance very different from other law codes; in particular, the ban on taking or paying interest is strictly enforced. This affects every arrangement from home mortgages to international loans. The U.S. Treasury's interest in Islamic finance thus may reflect a concern to avoid discrimination in domestic markets and to do a better job of integrating Islamic countries into the world economic system. That would be A Good Thing.

Hadesh West

Just returned from the first part of Hadesh West, where I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting Fiddish's Steven I. Weiss and jewsweek/Protocols's Luke Ford. Steven is covering the event for The Forward, Luke for jewsweek. I was there for talks by sociologists of religion Steven M. Cohen and Bruce Phillips, demographer Lorraine Blass, and social psychologist Beryl Geber. One of the most important comments that was made and reiterated was that the phenomena seen to be "afflicting" the Jewish community, particularly in the western United States (declining affiliation, intermarriage, etc.) are by no means unique to Jews and in fact reflect broader trends in American religiosity. Individual religious groups often tend to think that the sky is falling on them when in fact it is (a) not falling or (b) falling on other people as well.

I remain concerned about the increasing rhetoric in favor of Jewish day schools. Sociologically speaking, there is little difference between the push for Jewish day schooling and the push for Southern Baptist home schooling or "Christian academy"-ing. Roman Catholic parochial schools at least are racially and ethnically integrated. The Jewish and Protestant versions tend to be rather tribal and isolationist, and I can't see how it can be good for American civil society as a whole. Indeed, much of the Jewish social and cultural impact on American society over the past fifty years has been around issues of civil rights, equalization of socioeconomic opportunity, and ending discrimination and prejudice. All of this depends on educating a citizenry that knows what other people (and I do mean Other People) are like--a condition that day schools (Jewish, Southern Baptist, etc.) simply cannot fulfill.

One Nigeria?

Reuters raises the question of whether the recent bloodshed in Nigeria might not lead to the fragmentation of the state. Massacres by Christians of Muslims and by Muslims of Christians--reported with remarkable balance in the CT Weblog--are leading to concerns that a united Nigeria might not be worth the trouble.

I defer to my more knowledgeable colleagues at The Head Heeb for more detailed reporting. A religious civil war in Nigeria obviously would be A Bad Thing and no doubt would further destabilize west and central Africa. Considering the efforts that Nigerians have taken to develop democratic civil society, it would be a tragedy indeed.

Emmerich beatification roundup

NewsMax.com, a major conservative media player in the frenzy surrounding The Passion, reports on the beatification of the "saintly nun whose visions were a large part of the inspiration" behind the film.

The NewsMax.com story appears to create controversy out of whole cloth, reporting that "critics charged that Gibson's use of her visions to enhance his depictions of Christ's bloody passion and crucifixion was an endorsement of her alleged anti-Semitism, and are now attacking the Catholic Church's beatification of the nun on those grounds."

This simply is inaccurate. Opposition to Emmerich's beatification on the grounds of the non-canonicity of the Brentano-edited writings goes back to the turn of the 20th century and resulted in a half-century delay. So the opposition to Emmerich's beatification predates Mel Gibson's birth, let alone his film.

Moreover, to date neither Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League nor Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, two of the major players in the Passion controversy, have made any public statements, nor has any official of the American Jewish Committee (another Jewish organization whose officials commented on the film). Of course I have criticized the beatification post-Passion, but as far as I can tell I'm the only person to have done so publicly--and I'm hardly on NewsMax's radar. If I am, they could at least have quoted me!

Anglican Church of Canada delays consideration of same-sex unions

The Anglican Church of Canada has decided to undertake a two-year study of whether same-sex rituals are "a matter of doctrine," delaying action till the next national meeting in 2007.

The move to delay consideration may leave the matter unresolved until 2010. It also effectively removes the Church of Canada from meaningful participation in any public debate over same-sex civil unions, which now are legal in Canada. The question before the Church only pertains to whether the Church would bless such unions.

Church attendance, religiosity, and incredulity

I've blogged before about how the religious profile of the U.S. population is unusual compared with other Western countries (and many developing ones as well). Here David Waters of the Scripps Howard News Service expresses his incredulity that 75 million Americans do not go to church. His solution is to "expand our notion of church ...You don't have to go to church to be the church."

Waters graciously acknowledges that the "union of God and the soul" doesn't only "take place in a church service. It also can happen in a synagogue, a mosque or a temple." Thanks, David; you had me worried there for a moment.

The underlying establishmentarian-hegemonic attitude that this article reflects is part of the reason why American religiosity so confounds the rest of the world.

...or just make peace

From The Los Angeles Times: Los Angeles County will remove the Latin cross from its official seal, and may replace it "with images of a Spanish mission and Native Americans."

A key finding: "a review of the transcript from a 1956 Board of Supervisors meeting reveals that, at the time, the cross was intended as a religious symbol. After some speakers joked about what they considered an emaciated cow, Kenneth Hahn praised the seal for depicting "the cultural and educational and the religious life of this county."

When in doubt, declare war

Always a good way to win over one's critics: "The head of the White House's faith-based initiatives program said Tuesday that a 'culture war' was dividing the Bush administration and its critics who challenge the constitutionality of mixing church and state."

2.5 commandments, then?

The Associated Press covers the Alabama Supreme Court elections as a "referendum on Roy Moore's Ten Commandments stand." The question is "if Moore's fight to acknowledge God in public buildings has political staying power - or if the GOP's business wing can fend off the religious right."

As of late Tuesday night, only one of the four Moore-supporting candidates was winning his race.

If the informal slate was unable to gain political traction in Alabama, then it's unlikely that Roy Moore himself will be able to convince voters that he is a viable presidential candidate. While the AP story exaggerates the difference between the GOP's "business" and "religious" wings, nonetheless the election outcome suggests that Republican voters--facing a slump in the polls--will stay loyal to the GOP rather than fragment.

Further analysis is needed to determine whether voter turnout affected the results; the Bush campaign is counting on the votes of around 6 million "missing" evangelicals in the November elections, but some dispute (1) whether they exist and (2) if they do exist, whether they'll turn out.

The only near-certainty as a result of this Alabama election is that Roy Moore will not run for President. There--I've gone out on a limb and made a prediction.

Religious pluralism is breaking out all over

From Haaretz via Bloghead, more news of religious pluralism in Israel. This time, a Knesset member wants the Israeli armed forces to employ non-Jewish chaplains:

MK Ran Cohen (Yahad) is sponsoring a bill that would require the Defense Ministry to appoint a kadi, a Druze kadi and a Christian clergyman as chaplains to provide religious services to non-Jewish soldiers, to make sure that when Muslim and Druze soldiers die during the course of their service, they are brought to a dignified burial. ...There is a rabbi in every unit of the American and French army that includes a Jew, for example, but Cohen says the IDF ignores the needs of soldiers from the minorities. As of last night, the government was expected to oppose the bill."

Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

Ending the orthodox marriage monopoly in Israel

Haaretz reports that former Sepharidc Chief Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi-Doron is publicly advocating the end of the orthodox monopoly over marriage. This is a major step forward for religious freedom in Israel.

Bakshi-Doron argued that forcing Jewish couples to go through state-mandated orthodox religious procedures results in (1) the irrelevance of the law, as couples go abroad for weddings, (2) "hatred of the rabbinate," and (3) increased levels of adultery and illegitimate births (at least according to Jewish law).

Having just read an article on "neo-secularization" in the latest issue of Sociology of Religion, I find Bakshi-Doron's logic to be entirely consistent with the notion that when religion becomes fully voluntary, religious adherence and observance actually go up.

Legally, ending the orthodox marriage monopoly would strengthen religious freedom. Culturally, it might actually strengthen religion itself.

Congregation for the Causes of Saints in re Emmerich

I have been advised that the Vatican office in charge of the Emmerich beatification is the
Congregation for the Causes of Saints, whose Prefect is Cardinal José Saraiva Martins. I have his address and fax number and will share it with serious inquirers who might wish to communicate with him.

A reminder: criticisms of the Emmerich beatification should be communicated with "with diplomacy, integrity, and respect for the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. [For Jews,] as 'cherished elder brothers,' our role should be to hold the Church to its highest standards, not to denigrate and antagonize it. There is dignity in dissent."

Interview with Irshad Manji

Progressive Muslim writer Irshad Manji is profiled in Australia's The Age:

Irshad is a key figure in the civil war within 21st-century Islam. She is the Saladin of progressive Muslims, an outrider for the notion that you can be both a faithful Muslim and a mouthy, fiercely democratic, Canadian lesbian. As one American journalist put it,
"Irshad Manji does not drink alcohol and she does not eat pork. In every other respect, she is Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare."

Prolegomena, part 2

There's something in the air ...Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi: "Many Muslims refuse to acknowledge that there can be bad Muslims, and that Islamic teachings have been corrupted by some groups to serve their militant cause. ...Their uncompromising ideologies can drive the world to the brink of disaster."

Besides, the parable is about wineskins, not bottles....

A man in Charlottetown who bottled his evangelical impulses and set them adrift on the ocean has had a new epiphany: some people just call it littering.

Wigging out over water

The New York Times reports that NYC tap water may not be kosher.

Prolegomena to an Islamic Reformation?

Frederick of Saxony Pervez Musharraf pleas for enlightened moderation in the Washington Post.

Wig update: hair-raiser

Cox News Service, via AZCentral.com, reports that "Some Israelis think the rabbis are, well, splitting hairs." Specifically, "some ultra-Orthodox women see behind the latest controversy an effort by rabbis to assert their authority. 'Take the wigs off the heads of the women and put them inside the heads of the men,' goes one of the wig jokes circulating among ultra-Orthodox women this week."

Sinner on Emmerich

Bill Cork has a twist on the Emmerich case.

I, too, have come across Samuel Sinner's name in internet searches, but I don't know who he is, other than that he works for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Archives. He argues, "We are at times confronted in the Brentano Emmerich texts with a simultaneous or dialectical presence of an anti- and philo-Semitic dynamic." I'm not sure what that means, but I'm not convinced.

Theology by polling?

Mark A. R. Kleiman looks at a survey of U.S. Catholics and predicts that "Kerry is safe from the bishops."

Hmmm. Not so much. Last I checked, the Roman Catholic Church doesn't update its theological and moral codes according to the opinion of its U.S. membership.

But it does mean that John Kerry's political appeal (or not) to U.S. Catholics probably won't suffer.

Peace be with you - but not with you?

Via Jesus' General: Laymen attempt to block gays at Mass. Via Bill Cork, FOXNews.com: Catholic Parishioners Clash Over Gay Rights. And from GetReligion, Rainbow children.

Once again with feeling 1: the Apostolate sleeps in the Episcopate, not random men who want to disrupt communion.
The rainbow sashes may be a problem, but it's the clergy's call.

Once again with feeling 2: Memo to the "Ushers of the Eucharist": you want the priesthood of believers, try Protestantism.

UPDATE (for clarity): in the comments, Mia Storm rightly points out that Catholicism does use the language of a universal priesthod (1 Pet. 2:9), but it is subject to the "authority and mission of the ministerial priesthood of Aaron and his descendents." The underlying point of my "memo" to the "Ushers," I think, still applies: in the Roman Catholic Church, and especially in sacramental matters, there is no role for vigilantism.

Emmerich beatification roundup

Reuters coverage of the Emmerich beatification is generating some misleading headlines:

The Telegraph (Calcutta): Passion nun set for sainthood
The Scotsman (Scotland): Sainthood for nun behind film's 'anti-Semitic' scenes

Beatification is not the same as canonization (declaring someone to be a saint). While beatification is a necessary prerequisite for canonization, beatification is a standalone process. It does not lead inevitably to sainthood.

Amy Sullivan on religion & politics

The Gadflyer's Amy Sullivan blogs regularly on religion. She is the author of "Getting Religion," an article for the Democratic Leadership Council's various print and web 'zines in which she argues that "Democrats shouldn't be scared of religion. One-half of Democratic voters attend church regularly. And their platform is a good reflection of mainstream religious values. They just need to learn better ways to talk about it."

Politically, we're mostly on the same page. I agree, for example, that if John Kerry's religiosity is fair game, then so is George Bush's. She is correct to propose news coverage of Bush's "[dissent] from United Methodist teaching on a number of key issues." Politically, I would agree that "the few Catholic bishops who have spoken out against Democrats are overplaying their hand"--if it were true. Those bishops have spoken out against pro-choice and pro-stem-cell-research politicians, not against Democrats. There's an important difference.

She would be better off monitoring whether those bishops have condemned or denied communion to Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum (who endorsed pro-choice Republic Arlen Specter for re-election) or California's Dana Rohrabacher (who with his wife used embryo-based in vitro fertilization in order to have a family). The proof is in the pudding's consistency.

And while I agree with her sociological assessment of "the pervasive anti-institutionalism of American society"--that "Americans do not like being told what to do, particularly when it comes to casting votes"--I see no reason why it should stop anyone, conservative Roman Catholic bishops included, from continuing in the attempt. It may be bad politics, but it's coherent theology, and progressive politicians who want to speak the language of religious faith need to develop a vocabulary that distinguishes the one from the other.

Covering Immigration, Conversion, and the "Who is a Jew" Debate -- To spin or not to spin?

While the Associated Press--and thus most U.S. and U.K.-based newspapers--reported that Israel's Court Urges Israel to Accept Conversions, Israel's own English-language dailies were rather more cautious, using language like "defer" and "postpone."

Arutz Sheva (right-wing): Supreme Court Sends Conversion Hot Potato Back To Government

Haaretz (liberal): Court defers ruling on non-Orthodox conversions in Israel Article.

Jerusalem Post (center-right): Court defers ruling on non-Orthodox conversion.

Maariv (centrist): Supreme Court postpones decision on conversion: For now, judges rule 'Aliyah' to Israel determined by "desire to settle in Israel", not place of conversion.

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)--the major news agency for U.S. and diaspora Jews--was even more effusive in its coverage (reproduced in full here because the story was posted as a time-limited "breaking news" brief):

A coup for converts?

Those who convert to Judaism after immigrating to Israel can receive automatic citizenship, Israel’s high court ruled.

Monday’s ruling by the High Court of Justice, which capped seven years of deliberations, was a victory for those who move to Israel for religious studies and then convert abroad, usually via Reform or Conservative rabbis. But the court stopped short of formally recognizing non-Orthodox conversions. It gave the state 45 days to prepare its arguments for preserving the status quo, in which Israel’s Interior Ministry accepts only Orthodox converts for immediate naturalization under the country’s Law of Return.

This ruling and the Interior Ministry's follow-up are of tremendous political and financial importance to Israel. Orthodox and ultraorthodox groups and political parties no doubt will reopen the "who is a Jew?" debate to demand more stringent controls accompanied by a reinforcement of the orthodox monopoly over Israeli civil law (marriages, burials, etc.). Non-orthodox groups, particularly American Jews, will look to the Interior Ministry to liberalize further Israel's conversion and immigration laws. While American Jewish donors are quite generous to Israel and Israeli causes, the question of conversion and the status of non-orthodox Jewry is the one issue on which donors have been prepared to withhold their financial support.

American Jewish donors (note the distinction between donors and American Jews as a whole) tend to be right-wing on Israeli-Palestinian political questions, but they are decidedly left-wing on religious questions. It remains to be what will happen if donors are presented with an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a tightening of the orthodox monopoly.

Walk on the wild side?

Via jewschool, news of a sex-segregated street in Bnei Brak, Israel.

Foundation for American Communications on Religion and Popular Culture

The independent Foundaiton for American Communications (FACS), whose mission is "to improve the quality of information reaching the public through the news," focuses inter alia on Journalism, Religion, and Public Life, with links to useful resource guides by serious scholars--Jeffrey Mahan, Gaston Espinosa, and Rowland Sherrill.

Progressive Catholic sect?

This press release from the "Catholic Diocese of One Spirit" (via RNS) describes the organization as follows:

The Catholic Diocese of One Spirit is part of a group of ecumenical Catholic faith communities across the nation that celebrate the richness of Catholic spirituality and its traditions. As a generic (i.e., not "Roman," "Coptic," "Orthodox" or other rite) Catholic faith community, One Spirit honors the Pope and other religious leaders, but is not under their jurisdiction nor subject to their canon law nor the guidelines of the Roman or any other individual portion of the Catholic Church. Although One Spirit shares a common Catholic theology and liturgical tradition, it differs significantly in many of the disciplines and rules that govern the Roman rite of the Catholic Church.

Sociologically speaking, one would expect the conservative Traditionalist Catholics and the Society of Saint Pius X to have a progressive analogs at the other end of the theological spectrum. While none of these groups officially are in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, it is interesting to note how that non-affiliation is described. While the Society of Saint Pius X website goes to great pains to argue that it is not schismatic and in fact "professes filial devotion and loyalty to Pope John Paul II, the Successor of Saint Peter and the Vicar of Christ" on its main page, the folks at Catholic Apologetics International (some of whose postings are openly antisemitic) to argue that SSPX is schismatic, but they aren't. By contrast, the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit, while claiming a Catholic liturgical and cultural heritage, expressly places itself outside the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church. Beliefnet.com's guide to Catholicism is a more light-hearted look at the various positions within the Catholic world.

All of this, of course, reinforces--as do the "communion wars"--that the central disagreements in the Roman Catholic Church have more to do with authority (who gets to decide) than with theology (what is decided).

"Faith and Progressive Policy: Proud Past, Promising Future"

On Tuesday, June 9, the Center for American Progress will hold a conference on "Faith and Progressive Policy" launching a

multi-year project regarding the intersection of religion and public policy. This project will support and amplify progressive religious voices, explore the vital role of faith in public life, and promote religious freedom afforded by the separation of church and state.
This launch event will affirm the historic role of faith in social, economic and international policy, while highlighting the religious values and morals that continue to influence the development of progressive policy today.

According to the press release, discussion themes will include

* The role of religion in public life
* The impact of religion on the civil rights movement, economic justice reforms, the women's movement and international human rights
* The links between common religious themes and values and current debates on foreign policy and national security, tax and budget policy, and environmental and energy policies

Zenit on Emmerich via Bill Cork

Bill Cork links to the Zenit coverage of the Emmerich beatification, noting that Zenit makes a direct link from Emmerich to her writings to The Passion.

"If this Roman news agency fails to note that her writings were specifically excluded from consideration in the investigative process because they were likely not written by her," he asks,
"how will the ordinary Catholic make the distinction?"

How, indeed?

Zenit, it should be noted, is operated by the conservative Legionaries of Christ and was an early promoter of The Passion. Zenit broke the story that led to the "stolen script" allegations. I would expect that Zenit will try to spin the Emmerich beatification as an endorsement of both The Passion and its theology.

Far more telling, in my view, will be the ways in which other Catholic news services, such as the various NCRs, report the story.

Is "antisemitism" losing meaning?

Dutchblog Israel suggests that "one of the consequences of the undiscriminate use by so-called defenders of Israel of derivatives of the word 'anti-Semitism' when criticism against the Jewish state is expressed, is that that word has lost most of its powerful historical content."

Once more, with feeling

"Jewish" is not a synonym for "Israel."
"Israeli" is not a synonym for "Jewish."

Kudos to the Emir of Qatar.

The Head Heeb

I'm glad that Jonathan Edelstein of The Head Heeb has been commenting here -- it gives me an excuse to say how interesting his blog is--news and analysis I haven't seen anywhere else.

A Good Thing

From now on, students preparing for the Muslim ministry will be sharing classes with American men and women studying to be Christian priests and pastors.

Evangelical-Catholic Alliance?

onReligion links to Laurie Goodstein's article in the New York Times, "The 'Hypermodern' Foe: How the Evangelicals and Catholics Joined Forces."

The article is good as it goes, but some of the evidence she provides is a bit dated (the Neuhaus-Colson manifesto). Moreover, if my friend and colleague Dr. Julie Ingersoll is right (see her chapter in our forthcoming After The Passion is Gone), then the conservative Catholic-evangelical coalition may in fact be coming loose around the edges. The evidence from The Passion is hardly as one-sided as it appears in this article, and the 2004 election results may or may not be good indicator.

What is true is that moderate evangelicals are less concerned about working with Roman Catholics on issues of common cultural concern. But it's not clear just how deeply that alliance of convenience will take hold. The evidence from The Passion is that the coalition is broad but shallow.

And we're complaining about Emmerich?

The right-wing Israeli news service Arutz Sheva reports that "after receiving a written apology expressing remorse for publishing statements against Arabs, Attorney General Meni Mazuz has indicated the charges of incitement and racism are being dropped against Torah authority Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh."

In the article, Rabbi Ginsburgh's name is a byperlink to the Gal Einai Institute, which includes on its website a "Call to the Nations of the World, Religious Leaders, and the Head of the Catholic
Church, Pope John Paul II" to acknowledge that Jesus was not the messiah. There is an article on the "Astrological Destiny for a Jew and Non-Jew" that asserts that non-Jews cannot overcome their fate, whereas Jews can. The page, "Love Your Jewish Neighbor" notes that "A Jew is not allowed to develop a very close relationship with a non-Jew for the simple reason that the non-Jew's faulty faith system might have negative influence on the Jew." And the series "True Monotheism" asserts that "there is no way (other than conversion to Judaism, when the born-non-Jew is genuinely so aroused) that the consciousness of a non-Jew can reach the level of [God's "infinite light"]. The consciousness of the non-Jew derives from one of the three lower worlds..."

Sounds like Rabbi Ginsburgh needs to start writing a few more apologies.

Emmerich's visions...

...are available here.

A Google search for "emmerich" or a Google News search for "emmerich" is rather more likely to get you to information about the director of the new movie, The Day After Tomorrow.

Reuters on the Emmerich beatification

Reuters has the Emmerich beatification story, with the headline, "Pope to Beatify Mel Gibson's 'Passion' Muse." The same piece already has appeared in Israel's Haaretz . If there were any doubt about how this would play out....

The article cites Father John O'Malley's article in America--see Bill Cork's initial post at ut unum sint for the link. The article also quotes Professor Diana Apostolos-Cappadona, a Georgetown University expert in Christianity and art. No-one directly involved in the Passion controversy is quoted, nor is any representative of the various Jewish and Roman Catholic communities in the U.S. or abroad.

There is an irony here: Emmerich's beatification was announced in Germany, which was the only country in the world in which leaders of the Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish communities cooperated to issue a joint statement criticizing The Passion.

It is also to be regretted that the Emmerich beatification story likely will drown out the very positive news of Catholic-Jewish dialogue about the movie and agreement to restrict how it be used in religious school classrooms.

What about the church bells?

The Detroit Free Press covers the controversy in Hamtramck, Michicgan over a local mosque's intention to broadcast it's call to prayer five times per day.

Three points:
1. No one ever held a referendum over church bells. What's so different about the call to prayer?

2. Defeat of the city council ordinance in the referendum would have the paradoxical effect of guaranteeing the future of the call-to-prayer broadcast. Absent regulation, there's a strong First Amendment case to be made defending the broadcasts. But the ciy council wanted to regulate the sound volume and passed an ordinance to enable it. So why try to overturn that provision?

3. What's with the "vanload of tough-looking men who had driven more than five hours from southern Ohio ...to protest the mosque's plan ...big and broad-shouldered, with sternly furrowed brows, [who] moved quickly and shouted prayers spontaneously, using phrases like "David's Mighty Men" and "spiritual warriors" to describe themselves, one [with] a black eye"? That is scary.

Thanks again to the CT Weblog for the link.

Thank you, George Gallup

Again via the CT Weblog, a Religion News Service piece on George Gallup's retirement. All of us who study the sociology of religion owe him a debt of thanks.

Passion roundup

Via the CT Weblog, two more post-Passion articles: WTOC Savannah, Georgia, and Mary Gordon in The American Prospect.

Globalization.

"A Chinese seller of imported fruit bicycles past a billboard featuring a South Korean movie star endorsing a Japanese digital camera."

Beyond red-vs-blue: it's Christians-vs-the godless atheists

"Redeem the vote": "Godless America formed a pact as atheists to get all religion out of politics. They have their views. And so do Christians."

No doubt this rhetoric is a sure-fire way to get young people to the polls. Good luck with that.

It's okay for people to look different -- really, it is.

Another day, another Muslim clothing case: "A 15-year-old girl's attempt to wear strict Muslim dress in the classroom could cause unwelcome divisions in a school, the high court heard yesterday."

The Guardian's headline and lead paragraph make no secret of that newspaper's sympathies.

Sorry, Barry, but Communion's not a Public Right.

Lots of people are linking to this story -- Americans United for the Separation of Church and State have asked the IRS "to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Roman Catholic diocese of Colorado Springs over the bishop's threat to withhold communion from those who disagree wit the church."

AUSCS is an important group in a democratic society. It is also complete off its rocker on this issue.

Religious groups are allowed to make their own rules regarding their own organizations. Communion in the Catholic Church is not a public good, nor a public entitlement.

This is, I suspect, a prelude to something else: a demand that because religious organizations perform marriages that are recognized by the state, they be required to perform whatever types of marriages that the state recognizes. Maybe it's time for religious organizations to get out of the state-recognized marriage business?

CT on The Passion in the Middle East

This Christianity Today story about the popularity of The Passion in the Middle East neglects to mention the historical dilemma posed by the film: was there or wasn't there a Jewish temple in Jerusalem?

(Thanks to relapsedcatholic for the link.)

Newsweek's Woodward in First Things on The Passion

Amy Welborn at open book links to Kenneth Woodward's First Things recap of the controversy over The Passion.

The article's aggressive title--"The Passion's Passionate Despisers"--does not reflect the careful treatment that Woodward, a defender of the film, gives the controversy. He does assert that the controversy revealed "currents of hostility toward Christianity."

Some interesting tidbits:
1. "Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, scrutinized the film for signs of 'creeping excessive Catholicism' and found none, thus clearing a path to the theater door for ten million Southern Baptists." When was this? Where was this reported?

2. "many of the utterances attributed to Emmerich are indeed anti-Semitic, though none of these find their way into Gibson’s film. What no one mentioned is that the Vatican halted Emmerich’s canonization process in 1928 over concern that Brentano probably embellished her visions considerably. In other words, Gibson drew from a book that the Church considers dubious enough to exclude from material it will consider in her cause for sainthood." Did Woodward know something the rest of us didn't about the Vatican's latest plans for Emmerich?

Woodward's initial conclusion, halfway through the article, is reasonable:

So what is to be learned from all of this? First, Christians and Jews alike can rejoice over the dog that did not bark. Except for one unsettled Pentecostal pastor in Colorado there have been no reported incidents of anti-Semitism related to Gibson’s film. That is remarkable, considering how many millions of Americans have seen the film, and more so because the media have been primed to report any such incidents. Indeed, it was a golden opportunity for any crank looking for headlines to make his voice heard. The lesson, though, is not that in “tolerant” America Jews and Christians now understand each other. As their widely different reactions to the film suggest, there’s a lot of misunderstanding yet to confront.

At the end of the piece, Woodward returns to his allegation that the critics of the movie were disrespectful. However, he forgets to mention that the backlash against many of the critics wasn't exactly pleasant, either:

It would be nice, but too much to expect, if Jews and Muslims as well as Christians could see The Passion of the Christ and recognize a larger theme: that like Jeremiah and Mohammed, prophets are rarely welcomed among religious establishments. Were I a Jew, I admit, this is one film I would skip. But as the nonviolent responses to The Passion so far demonstrate, this is a film that Jews should realize is not about them. It is about Jesus. As a creative interpretation of sacred texts rather than a straightforward reading of a scriptural story, it deserves to be treated with the respect we normally show to all sincere attempts to search out the fullness of God’s intention. Sadly, such respect was shown by few critics of Gibson’s Passion.

Onward Christian Soldiers

The Wall Street Journal explores the involvement of evangelicals on U.S. foreign policy.

The premise of the article is rather ironic, given the at-best mixed record of missionary work:

...In seeking to democratize ancient tribal societies through force, the U.S. has found that the process can be as troublesome for the invader as for the invaded. The traumatic occupation in Iraq raises a question heard in some other places that have tried U.S.-style political or economic reforms: How transferrable are American values outside America?

To one potent segment of U.S. society, the evangelical Christians, values such as religious, political and economic freedom aren't just America's norms but God's. The evangelicals' growing involvement in foreign affairs creates a new constituency for intervention abroad.

The WSJ claims to have Gallup numbers putting the proportion of evangelicals at 43% of the U.S. population. That's nearly twice as many as Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly says there are. They must be using different definitions, so I would suggest to the WSJ and Gallup that calling yourself "born-again" (which about half of all Americans do) doesn't make you an evangelical.

"Jewnitarians"? (that's a quote, not a slur)

Mark Kleiman observes that the Texas-vs-Unitarians case likely was a spinoff of Texas's quixotic battle to deny a tax-exemption to Ethical Culture.

Bosnia redux?

The Head Heeb (actually a fascinating blog on politics and policy throughout the developing world) reports on a ceasfire monitoring agreement in Darfur.

This reminds me of the UN arrangements in Bosnia. And we know how well those turned out. Interestingly enough, the people on the wrong end of the genocide, once again, are Muslim.

Sounds like the makings of an African remake of No Man's Land.

Blessed politics?

Bill Cork's story about Anne Emmerich notes that Emperor Karl I of Austria -- the last Habsburg emperor -- also is slated for beatification.

I'm intrigued that the Karl I announcement comes amidst the EU Constitution debate over the inclusion of "God language."

Combined with the Emmerich announcement, it strikes me that the Vatican may be giving the rather dangerous impression that it is politicizing the beatification process. Certainly I don't have enough evidence to make such a claim, but there are a sufficient number of uninformed observers out there who won't be so judicious in their comments.

(NB: Some would put the recent canonization of Gianna Beretta Molla into this politicized category. I would not do so, only because canonizing her reinforces an existing priority of the Church. Unlike the October beatifications, it simply cannot be read as an attempt to make "friends" or score "points."

That is, beatifying Anne Emmerich won't make the Traditionalists like the Vatican any more than they do now. Beatifying Karl I won't put "God" into the EU Constitution. But canonizing Gianna Beretta Molla will make a difference for those who work in and with the Church on pro-life issues.)

Beliefnet no longer blogging?

Beliefnet's "B-Log" has not been updated in more than a week, leaving me to wonder whether the project hasn't been abandoned....

Anne Emmerich of Passion fame to be beatified

Bill Cork links to this news item about the forthcoming beatification of Anne Catherine Emmerich, known these days as the source of much of the antisemitism in Mel Gibson's The Passion.

As Bill puts it, "Her name is attached to writings that are at times offensive, childish, silly, and, for some people, moving. They are highly antisemitic, and include repetition of the 'blood libe'l."

In the past I have defended the Roman Catholic hierarchy against accusations that Mel Gibson is its problem, since he belongs to a Traditionalist sect that does not recognize the legitimacy of the last few Vatican administrations.

That said, I do hold the Church responsible for this decision to beatify Emmerich. It is at best impolitic and at worst insulting. Certainly it is a slap in the face to those of us in the Jewish community who sought to defend the post-Vatican II Church against its critics. It also renders moot the Church's own protestations regarding the non-canonical excesses of The Passion.

I cannot understand why the Vatican would take such a step at this time. While I cannot pretend to know the details behind this decision--Bill links to an America article describing some of the backstory--I also cannot pretend to hide my deep disappointment at this move.

Let me say something else as well: I hope that "Jewish defense" leaders like Abraham Foxman and Rabbi Marvin Hier have learned from their Passion debacle that shrill public remonstrances will get us nowhere. I expect that Jewish religous and organizational representatives will have something to say about this forthcoming beatification, but I expect that it will be said with diplomacy, integrity, and respect for the Roman Catholic Church as a whole. As "cherished elder brothers," our role should be to hold the Church to its highest standards, not to denigrate and antagonize it. There is dignity in dissent.

Note to Bill, who asks whether people will understand that the writings attributed to Emmerich have been discarded and that she is being beatified "on the basis of her virtues": I'm sorry, but they won't, and there is no reason to expect them (us, me) to do so. If this were a serious claim, I would expect to see the Vatican loudly and clearly repudiate the writings attributed to her, wait a sufficient time for that repudiation to filter down through the Church, and only then quietly reopen her case. To my knowledge, no such repudiation has occurred--and in this year of Gibson's Passion, of all years, it is unrealistic and indeed unreasonable to expect anyone to separate Emmerich from the writings published in her name.

A "field report" on the wig investigation

Rabbi Aharon Dunner, a highly-respected Jewish judge based in London, traveled to Tirupati, India, to investigate the process by which hair is collected for later use in wig manufacturing. His report, published in the ultraorthodox webzine Dei'ah veDibur, suggests that he conducted serious fieldwork, including asking participants (hair donors and barbers alike) about what they understood themselves to be doing:

We tried to speak with the people getting shaved to ascertain whether they came there ...to make a sacrifice ...or ...as an act of submission. Many of them said it is a gift to the idol because `he loves [their] hair.' An important point I was asked to verify and which I brought up-- during the haircutting people say prayers out loud or silently to the idol and repeat them constantly. They also have a ...facility where they immerse themselves after the haircut.
...Afterwards I spoke with the barber and according to what I gathered, although the barber receives a salary he is considered their assistant and [representative].

(There are untranslated Hebrew words in the text of the article but it is comprehensible as a whole.)

Even though religious studies scholars have demonstrated that the hair-cutting process is not at at all an official part of the rituals at Tirupati, the participants themselves seem to consider it to be so. This is an example of how the study of "lived religion" (via ethnographic approaches) often can tell us a great deal more than "official" sources (such as texts and high-ranking clergy and theologians).

The return of the seamless garment?

It would have been nice if the Catholic bishops of England and Wales had included crime & punishment (i.e., the death penalty) in Cherishing Life, but it seems a good start. (Thanks to onReligion.com for the link.)

[...]

Silence speaks far better than any partisan political prayers.

The comments are worth the whole post

Amy Welborn's open book: Taking Advantage has a brief post on the communion-related advertising campaign of a Denver United Methodist Church.

Read the post not for the information itself, but for the spirited commentary, particularly the Methodist-Catholic backs-and-forth. Makes me feel like I'm alternately in Worms and riding the circuit with Wesley. The disputation is alive and well in America.

Christianity Today on "The Politics of Communion"

I think CT's got it badly wrong this time.

In an editorial entitled, The Politics of Communion, it opines: "Some bishops don't want to use Communion as a threat when dealing with prochoice Catholic politicians. But it is certainly appropriate. Communion is the moment in church life at which we most deeply realize our connectedness, both to Jesus and to all his followers."

This simply doesn't sit right with evangelical doctrine, quite eloquently expressed here by Fuller's Richard Mouw: "We do not have to have either our theology or our ethics well worked out before we can come together to Calvary. All we need to know is that we are lost apart from the sovereign grace that was made available to us though the atoning work of Jesus Christ."

By definition, there can be no exceptions or conditions to sola fides--not for or against abortion, nor for or against stem cell research, nor for or against the war in Iraq.

If you don't hold by sola fides--and Roman Catholics don't--then it's a different ecclesiastical ballgame. But evangelicals endorsing putting conditions on "the moment in church life ..[of greatest] connectedness"?

Yes, Virginia, there are religious Democrats

Ruy Teixeira of DonkeyRising shares 7 Fun Facts on Religion and Politics. Herewith the higlights (click through for details):

1. Most progressives are religious.

2. It is true that progressives attend church less than conservatives. ...But the whole US population is trending toward less observance, not more.

3. In the 2000 VNS exit poll, it was widely noted that Bush won the support of voters who say they attend church more than weekly by 63 to 36 and voters who say they attend church weekly by 57 to 40 . ...[But] the more observant groups were only a bit over two-fifths of the electorate.

4. Not all evangelicals are conservative Republicans.

5. Karl Rove has claimed that there were four million evangelicals who didn’t go to the polls in 2000, but who can be turned out in 2004. This is an urban legend.

6. Conservatives and the GOP have made aggressive efforts to target Catholics. But there is no evidence that this targeting is actually working.

7. The GOP has also targeted Jews. Again, there is no evidence their appeals are working.

Religion and Healing

According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, "more than one-third of U.S. adults use complementary and alternative medicine." What's interesting is the inclusion of prayer in the survey:

"The 10 most commonly used CAM therapies and the approximate percent of U.S. adults using each therapy were:
Prayer for own health, 43 percent
Prayer by others for the respondent's health, 24 percent
Natural products (such as herbs, other botanicals, and enzymes), 19 percent
Deep breathing exercises, 12 percent
Participation in prayer group for own health, 10 percent
Meditation, 8 percent
Chiropractic care, 8 percent
Yoga, 5 percent
Massage, 5 percent
Diet-based therapies (such as Atkins, Pritikin, Ornish, and Zone diets), 4 percent.

This graph shows complementary & alternative medicine (CAM) usage broken down by any, all forms exclusing megavitamins, and all forms excluding prayer for health. If I read it correctly, "prayer for health" accounts for approximately one-quarter of all CAM usage (both overall and in the past year alone).

(Better-quality print-quality graphics, as well as other graphs, can be accessed here.)

Catholic-Jewish Consultation Committee on teaching with The Passion

The latest communique of the Catholic-Jewish Consultation Committee of the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Council of Synagogues condemns antisemitism and with respect to the use of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, urges educators to use USCCB and other documents to develop "solid educational programming around the film to guide students so they will be familiar with the deep theological significance and complex historical context of the passion narratives that no single film could fully convey."

The communique also expressed regret that "those who have raised questions about the film have received antisemitic mail." (The demonization of the movie's critics is a concern--independent of the important issues raised by the film itself--that Michael Berenbaum and I discuss in our introduction to After The Passion is Gone: American Religious Consequences.)

File under: diversity of belief, not behavior

Christian church bells aren't subject to referenda. Muslim calls to prayer are.

Passenger plane proselytizing?

What is it with evangelizing on airplanes? This is the second incident in, what, three months (after a pilot encouraged Christians on board to share their faith)?

Perhaps we all could agree on a moratorium on airplane evangelizing? The person sitting next to you is a captive audience, and despite the altitudinal temptations of being "nearer my God to Thee," you're more likely to turn them off than turn them on.

(This is not simply an evangelical Christian thing. I once sat on a plane from Zurich to Atlanta with a very friendly orthodox rabbi. After a brief conversation, I ended up having to explain more than once that yes, even though I am Jewish, I really did prefer to watch the in-flight movies than to study the Chassidic stories he was reading.)

Lights for Dignity in Iraq and around the World

Thanks to the Pluralism Project for this heads-up: Lights for Human
Dignity (http://www.lightsfordignity.org/) is an interfaith response to
the atrocities in Iraq. The call is out for people to light up their
homes, houses of worship, and businesses on Sunday night until dawn on
Memorial Day, May 30-31, 2004. "By this simple action, we can
demonstrate to the world that we share common values as people of faith
and as patriots. We will also bear witness to our commitment to peace
and good will in Iraq, in the United States, and around the world."

Mark Kleiman on "illegitimate claims to authoritative opinion"

Mark Kleiman's Fair and Balance Webloghas a cautionary tale about (1) clergy mistaking moral authority for political expertise and (2) the dangers of pointing out when clergy make that mistake.

He's absolutely right: "this isn't about thinking that clergypeople aren't smart or good people, or that their political participation is somehow unwelcome. It's about rejecting illegitimate claims to authoritative opinion."

Pinkerton on Mideast Shia-nanigans

James Pinkerton, writing in Newsday on "How Iran Might Triumph in Iraq":

The only question that remains is whether ...[the Iranian-born] Shia [Ayatollah Ali al-Sistant] will gain complete control of Iraq, or only partial control of the southern provinces. You Americans shouldn't think that Santa Claus is the only white-bearded man capable of a big belly laugh.

The State Department's had an "Islam desk" for the last decade or so--but oh, I forgot, the "architects" of the Iraq war (that's spelled I-r-a-n-'s-d-u-p-e-s) long ago stopped paying attention to State. When does willful ignorance become treason?

New Sudan blog

Via Crooked Timber: "Jim Moore has started a blog to encourage more coverage of the unfolding tragedy, Sudan: Passion of the Present."

Yes, but.

The Sudanese "peace pact" "does not include insurgents fighting a separate rebellion in Darfur region of western Sudan."

The genocide, apparently, continues.

An interesting solution, perhaps

CT's Weblog notes that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a death-row inmate who argues that his conversion to Christianity should have been a mitigating factor in his sentencing.

I have an idea: let's admit conversion as a mitigating factor, and give death-row inmates as much time as they need to convert. Most of them will die of natural causes in the meantime, but we shouldn't discriminate against those who take longer to find God than others do.

(I'm actually kind of serious, here. No point hiding that I'm a death penalty opponent and any legitimate & fairly enforced procedural wrinkle that eliminates or at least delays executions is fine by me.)

One question: would the Court have taken the case if the conversion was to Islam or Buddhism? I'd like to believe so, but my uncertainty bothers me.

Madonna's GotReligion ...just not the conservative Christian kind

"How can anyone on the cultural right continue to believe that they are caught up in a debate with secularism?" asks Terry Mattingly in his latest post to GetReligion.

Oh, get over yourselves...

...and call it Winter Break.

The usually on-the-money Jim Slagle has it wrong this time when he writes,

If someone seriously feels insulted by the phrase 'Christmas break,' then they need counseling. ...Hypersensitivity is not a sign of psychological health. ...At some point in life, we have to learn that the world does not adjust itself at our command. There are better things to do with one's time than thinking up new ways to be offended.

Sorry, Jim. I'm not a Christian, and "Christmas break" just doesn't do it for me. The United States is not a Christian country, nor are its states. Last I checked, public schools are goverment entities funded by taxpayer dollars. Why should Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Kwanzaa celebrants, etc., have to put up with "Christmas break"?

For the record, I went to a high school loosely affiliated with the Episcopal Church. We did have Christmas Break, and it didn't bother me one bit. Because it wasn't a state school.

And yes, I think the County of Los Angeles should remove the cross from its seal. Supervisor Mike Antonovich is dead wrong to compare removing the cross to "the hate of past book burners". Think what you want about the ACLU's latest choice of a fight, but tat's over the line.

UPDATE (5/27/04): Jim Slagle commented here at Religion & Society that he "had already drawn similar conclusions and removed the offending statements before reading your criticism." He also posted the following to his blog: "I had originally included some commentary here on this issue. As I went through it though, my words rang hollow. They didn't contribute to the ongoing debate, so I've removed them. In the future I will attempt to exercise such judgment before making my thoughts publically available." Thanks, Jim - and keep up the great posts.

Why the Torah is like a mobile phone

Novosti reports (via Religionnews) that Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar offers Shavuot greetings and compares the instructions in the Torah to those accompanying a mobile phone.

Whatever it takes, I guess. What's God's SMS address?

Texas to Unitarians: OK, you can pray

The Texas Comptroller has reversed her earlier decision to deny tax-exempt status to a Unitarian Universalist Church, but conceded only that the Church "is an organization created for religious purposes."

The determination of whether the church achieves those purposes, I suppose, is up to an Authority Higher than that of the Texas Comptroller's office.

You're a Buddhist, Charlie Brown...?

Jeff Sharlet at the Revealer explores an argument that "Peanuts" was "the result of a Zen Buddhist-like meditation."

Interesting argument, but I'm not convinced by the premise:

“Meditation,” writes Laurel Maury in the New York Press, “requires sameness, safety and routines. Schulz's life had all three--as did 1950s America.

This certainly doesn't gell with the findings of Robert S. Ellwood in his The Fifties Spiritual Marketplace: American Religion in a Decade of Conflict, in which he argues that "it was an immensely varied, conflicted, exciting, and -- yes -- atypical period" (from his Amazon.com comment).

To be sure, Sharlet acknowledges that Charles SchulSchulz was a devout Christian, not a Buddhist, but I'm more concerned that he not let Laurel Maury, the author of the "Zen Peanuts" argument, get away with stereotypical descriptions of American religion.

What are "psychological parents"?

In my days studying social anthropology, I had occasion to study contemporary kindship models. In theory, assuming a society in which a two-parent family (mother-father-child) is normative, it's possible for a newborn baby to have five parents (3 women and 2 men):

1 sperm donor
1 egg donor
1 surrogate mother
1 adoptive or social father
1 adoptive or social mother

I just read a Scripps Howard child-custody story that refers to adoptive parents as the "psychological parents and legal guardians" of the child at the center of the dispute.

"Psychological parentage" is a dangerously unspecific term. Many societies and cultures--including many in America--grant parent-like roles to a variety of people who do not have official kinship ties to a child (or adult). Hence the term "father figure" or "second mother."

The moment the notion of "psychological parentage" enters our conceptual vocabulary--as distinct from "adoptive" or "social" parentage (i.e., whom the society/culture identifies as the mother and/or father of a given child)--we open up the floodgates to a variety of claims of "parentage" that legitimately could be made by any number of people, from teachers to counselors to mentors to clergypeople.

It also opens the door to claims of what we might call "psychological non-parentage," in cases where a parent is emotionally absent or unavailable. "Emancipate me, Your Honor," says the 14 year-old. "My 'psychological parents' have abandoned me. My 'real psychological dad' is my football coach [drama teacher, priest, rabbi, psychiatrist, best friend's uncle Ted, etc.]...."

Note to my fellow academics: I am not arguing that "psychological parentage" does not exist. It most certainly does. However, we'd better think long and hard--and do a much better job of defining it--before we let it into the courtroom.

Raising Helen vs. Saved?

Terry Mattingly's article about non-Gibson-related efforts in Hollywood to "get" religion reads well for a while, and then ends on a bizarre note, quoting Walt Mueller, who runs the Elizabethtown, PA, based Center for Parent/Youth Understanding:

"The bottom line is that there are good Christians and then there are bad Christians and Hollywood gets to decide which is which. We're supposed to buy that?"

Huh?

Let's review:
1. Ben Shapiro says rabbis should excommunicate Joe Lieberman by barring him from the Sabbath.
2. Judie Brown says lay Eucharistic ministers should decide who gets communion and who doesn't.
3. Walt Mueller says Christians can be divided up into the "good" ones and the "bad" ones?

These are the best sources we can get for religion news these days?

Kabbalah Kontroversy

USA Today reports on the controversy within Judaism over the Kabbalah Centre, its Red String Bracelet, and the politics of pay-for-service mysticism.

If Scientology is a legitimate religion, then the religion of the Kabbalah Centre is also legitimate.

If Mormons and Christian Scientists are practicing Christianity, then the Kabbalah Centre is practicing Judaism.

There are defensible arguments for and against these positions, and credible scholars can be found on both sides. There are no easy answers.

"Fee-for-service" religion is the norm across Hindu and Buddhist traditions--it's only in the West that we seem to think there should be some self-sacrificing altruism involved.

In my own view, the emergence of the Kabbalah Centre as an offshoot of Judaism at best reflects the sociological maturity of Judaism as a "big-tent" world religion whose legitimacy is generally accepted globally. There are offshoots of Christianity that are rejected by "orthodox" Christians; why shouldn't the same be possible for Judaism?

However, since the Kabbalah Centre's leadership claims that Kabbalah is not Judaism, it is also possible that the Kabbalah Centre, if it lasts, will move in a direction analogous to Sikh and Baha'i trajectories away from Islam.

Thanks, Messrs. Gibson and Brown, for making us think?

The Boston Globe suggests that at least Dan Brown made us think. So did Mel Gibson.

Are we better off for it?

And yet...

How exactly is this different from Roman Catholic attempts to affect public policy on abortion and stem-cell research?

Isn't it a matter of which issues seem to have the greatest moral urgency? People of faith can and do disagree on which issues to prioritize, but it strikes me that the basic issue--whether or not to mobilize religious forces in the public sphere--is the same.

Fallout from the Communion Wars

The Hudson Reporter of New Jersey reports that New Jersey State Senator Bernard Kenny has left the Roman Catholic Church as a consequence of his disagreements with bishops who would deny him communion as a result of his political positions on abortion and stem-cell research.

The newspaper reports that "Kenny approached Msgr. Frank Del Prete of Sts. Peter and Paul Church and asked whether he would be denied communion because of his support for abortion rights and stem-cell research. Del Prete said that he would be given communion one last time, but would then be asked not to return."

This is a sad outcome, but I cannot help feeling that both "sides"--Msgr. Del Prete and Sen. Kenny--came out ahead for having the courage of their convictions.

The more disturbing item in the story is the following:

Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, a Catholic anti-abortion group based in Manhattan, said her organization believes that all priests and lay Eucharistic ministers who hand out communion are obligated to refuse communion to any federal, state or local official who is known to disagree with church teachings on abortion, contraception, stem cell research, euthanasia or in vitro fertilization.

"When a pro-abortion public figure presents himself for Holy Communion, everyone in the church knows that he is an advocate of a crime against God that should prohibit him from receiving the body and blood of Christ," said Brown in a recent statement. "There is no judgment involved. There is instead a public record that is not hidden, and in fact is often flaunted in the face of the church."

As I understand the rules--someone correct me if I'm wrong--the decision to deny a parishioner communion may not be made by a lay Eucharistic minister, but only by a priest (or preferably a bishop).

However strongly Ms. Brown may feel with respect to her beliefs, she, too, seems to have a basic misunderstanding of Canon Law and the authority it vests exclusively in the episcopate (and its agents in the ordained priesthood).

The rhetoric seems to be getting out of control.

More on the EU's God Problem

Britain's The Independent follows up on the debate over religious references in the EU Constitution.

Spain's new Socialist government prefers the current draft language, which notes Europe's "cultural, religious and humanist inheritance," as opposed to proposed language highlighting the "Christian roots of Europe."

The Guardian offers much the same information, with the addition that "the European parliament even rejected a proposal from Christian Democrat MEPs to mention the continent's 'Judaeo-Christian roots'."

The Guardian further observed that opposition to the "God" proposals is coming not only from secular-oriented governments, such as France and the UK, but also from Protestant governments like Sweden and Denmark. Again, to students of the history and politics of the Protestant Reformation, this should come as no surprise, not least in the environment that The Guardian describes:

The Vatican has made clear that it wants a reference to Christianity in the document.

"If you are the prime minister of a Catholic country it would be very useful to have the Pope on your side, especially when you hold a referendum on the constitution," said one diplomat.

New Jewish Religious Anti-Zionist Group?

Religionnews's apparently automatic harvesting of religion news stories has an eccentric side, listing a Scottish story about "Rabbie [sic] Burns" under Judaism (presumably the site has a robot searching on "rabbi."

Today it links to a press release from a group called "True Torah Jews" arguing that Jews Have the Right to Protect Themselves Against Zionism.

The opinion itself is unremarkable, if a minority one. But it's the first time that I've seen this group active--up until the "religious anti-Zionist" field has been dominated by the ultraorthodox (and pro-PLO) Neturei Karta.

A revealing defense of the IRD

Bill Cork at ut unum sint links to
a defense of the IRD at publsihed at the Touchstone Magazine blog.

Mr. Kushiner's is forthright in his defense of the IRD agenda, and his comments confirms my own assessment that this is a coordinated anti-denominational effort, that is--

coordinated (IRD didn't start the effort, but stepped up to coach the team):

RD came into an already existing ad hoc group of denominational leaders that had been meeting regularly in the 1980s. I attended many of those meetings, including the one at which the DuPage Declaration was issued. The sharing of resources and tactics was natural enough, but the IRD was not the organization that started the ball rolling. This is not to take anything away from the IRD’s helpful hosting of the meeting over the last number of years and their assistance in forming the ad hoc group into the Association for Church Renewal.

and anti-denominational (again, if the denominations get their Christianity right, they might survive, but...):

And if ...some denominations end up splitting, it will hardly be the doing of IRD, but rather the result of recalcitrant heresy turning denominations into religious organizations having only some historical but now inactive connection to Christianity, no longer resembling the founders' faith and commitments.

At least he's honest about it.

Heilman on the perils of Modern Orthodoxy

Both Jewschool and Protocols link to this op-ed by sociologist Samuel Heilman. Neither addresses an important point, which is the underlying assumption--observed but not explicitly analyzed by Heilman--that the most "authentic" version of a religion is its most conservative version. Stringency=authenticity?

Ultimately this is visible among contemporary conservative-fundamentalist Christians, Muslims, and even occasionally Buddhists.

(This is a different problem from the Roman Catholic communion dilemma, which relates to the authority of the episcopacy to define the parameters of the faith and whether/how best to enforce those boundaries.)

This goes to the methods by which a given definition of faith is developed.
Even for those who believe that the Torah/Bible/Koran (pick one) is the inerrant word of God, none would deny that it is human beings who do the actual interpretation. The decision to read something literally, metaphorically, allegorically, etc., ultimately is a human one, and different religions (as well as different sects within those religions) have different means by which (1) to choose the people who will perform the interpretation, (2) to perform the actual interpretation, and (3) to determine whether and how to enforce that interpretation.

(Again, the communion dilemma is #3 -- here, I'm focuing on #1 and #2.)

All of these, however, are human choices--even if they ultimately are ascribed to "the will of God." Note that I am not criticizing literalism, and inerrancy per se; rather, I am arguing that inerrancy and literalism no less are human interpretive choices than are metaphor and allegory.

A Disney Dilemma

Disney's tolerance extends to same-sex couples but not, apparently, to religious Muslims, according to the Orlando Sentinel via CT's Weblog.

So it's okay to be different, as long as you don't look different? The pluralism of external conformity.

Skeptical? Have a look inside a Buddhist "church" (they exist) or a Reform Jewish temple. For many, the only difference between these spaces and a traditional Protestant house of worship is the absence of a cross.

One of the most significant effects of the post-1965 wave of immigration is that non-Christian religious groups no longer are implicitly expected to pray like Protestants. Nor should they be expected to look like them.

Mrs. California!

AP covers the California legislators who protested remarks by the Rev. Ralph Drollinger regarding female legislators with children.

France, the EU, and God

AP (via the NYtimes) covers France's rejection of including references to God or Christianity in the EU Constitution.

Before the anti-French/anti-European jokes begin, it should be pointed out that the French history of laïcité is rather long and complicated. France imprisoned the Pope at Avignon was home to the first Inquisitions, and gave the world the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu. Before we ridicule its position--one shared, by the way, by the United Kingdom--we ought to consider France's long experience with mixing church and state.

Note also that predominantly Catholic Spain has not signed onto the effort to add these religious references, perhaps because of its recognition of its own patchwork history, from the Muslim-Christian encounter (not always bloody, but never exactly pleasant), to the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of the Jews, to the anti-clerical Republic and the clericofascist Franco regime.

Poland, Lithuania, and Slovakia, I think, suffer from a certain multiple-personality disorder on the subject. The World War II Slovak State had a priest for a president and was the only country actually to pay Germany to take its Jews (my great-grandmother and great-uncles included) off its hands. Poland and Lithuania have similarly bloody histories. But at the same time--and this is certainly true of the Czech Republic as well--religion, and in particular Roman Catholicism and Protestant Christianity, was a key part of national resistance to state socialism. Religion helped to define the nation in the face of state totalitarianism. So it's a mixed bag.

A Torah at Masada

So far this story has appeared only in the right-wing Arutz Sheba and in The Australian: Jews revive ancient synagogue.

My question: given the organizers' claim that "an active synagogue on the site was needed for the thousands of Jewish visitors who until now needed to bring a scroll to pray," will the synagogue and the scroll be made available without discrimination to all the Jewish groups visiting Masada, orthodox and non-orthodox alike, or will this be yet another site of religious division and discrimination?

Bad headline, good story

The headline of this Washington Times piece, The Uneasy Loyalties of a Muslim Soldier, is misleading.

It's Pfc. Bashir Ahmad's fellow soldiers who are uneasy--"I do often feel like I am viewed with suspicion, but that is always from soldiers who don't know me"--and to a certain extent, Pfc. Ahmad's father, who "says he must defend his son's presence in Iraq to some at his mosque who question how a Muslim can go to an Islamic country and fight against members of his own religion."

But there's no question about Pfc. Bashir Ahmad's loyalty, which is to the United States and his fellow soldiers.

I also question the Times's assertion that only a "minority" of Muslims worldwide believe that "jihad" is about self-struggle for good. It seems to have taken Pfc. Ahmad's assertion at face value--in fact, I think, it is only a small minority of Muslims who hold violent views about jihad.

Religioscope on the Sikhs

Religioscope's coverage of the Sikh community is so far the only notice I've seen taken of the fact that "when Manmohan Singh was sworn in India's prime minister, [he became] the first from the community to rule any country."

This really is big news that no-one is covering. One of the pay-movie channels ran Bend it like Beckham last night (Sikh traditions are featured in the film), but that's not exactly what I had in mind.

CT Weblog vs. CT Weblog readers

CT Weblog takes a responsible look at The Religious Side of the Abu Ghraib Scandal.

Would that its readers would do the same. A poll in the sidebar asking whether "the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib is primarily due to: [...]" yields the following results:

The total depravity of each person: 26%
The depravity of American culture: 14%
A systemic problem in the U.S. military: 12%
Moral relativism: 10%
The need to get information from enemies: 8%
I don't know: 7%
Battlefield stress: 6%
Anti-Muslim sentiment: 5%
Proliferating pornography: 4%
American bloodlust: 4%
Secularism: 2%
Allowing women in combat: 1%

Belief in the total depravity of human nature is a coherent theological tenet, but as an explanation for Abu Ghraib it's right up there with the "Twinkie defense": it's not my fault, I'm naturally depraved?

Religion 101 (again)

Roger Ailes blogs about Ben Shapiro's recent foray into the world of Catholic theology.

Ailes is right to criticize Shapiro's inconsistencies.

But both he and (more importantly) Shapiro simply are wrong when it comes to the Jewish consequences for Lieberman's endorsement of abortion.

1. "Excommunication" doesn't really occur in Judaism. There's something called cherem, and to be put under cherem means to be put under "the ban": no socializing with the banned party, no ritual honors, etc. But it does not have any effect on the person's salvation or standing before God.

2. Moreover, cherem simply would not be the appropriate response to an endorsement of abortion on demand. First, cherem has been used very rarely and only for cases of alleged heresy, such as Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza, or for persistent public flouting of Jewish law. Second, endorsement of abortion on demand simply is not heresy. Saying that there is no God, or five Gods, or that the Torah was written by space aliens--that's heresy. And approving of a Jewishly-illegal abortion is not the same as repeatedly undergoing or performing them in public.

3. Shapiro suggests that the appropriate response to Lieberman for a rabbi would be to say, "Don't expect to get an invitation for Sabbath." WRONG. First, Shabbat (the Sabbath) is not something one is invited to--it is an obligation incumbent on all Jews, even those under cherem and those who choose not to observe it. Second, invitation to a Sabbath meal (which I assume is what Shapiro meant) is a social custom, not a religious ritual. Moreover, I don't know many rabbis, even ultraorthodox ones, who would refuse to seat a sabbath-breaker (a far more serious crime) at his table, let alone one who disagrees on what ultimately is a minor tenet of Jewish law. Third, in terms of disciplining an alleged miscreant, the only rabbi who could do so would be the rabbi of the congregation to which the alleged wrongdoer belongs--in this case, Lieberman's own rabbi, not just anyone. (In this respect, Judaism is like Catholicism, where canon law is administered through the archdiocese to which the individual belongs. But what one Jewish congregation decides need not apply in any other--I believe that Maimonides, in fact, was put under cherem at one point, but that didn't stop him.)

The consequences for public refutation of settled Jewish law are fairly simple. Cherem is the Jewish equivalent of a tactical nuke. Not very likely. In a case where a rabbi or a congregation wants to show that he/it doesn't approve of what someone is doing, the solution is to withhold the extras, like being called up for blessings before the Torah or being asked to give a sermon on the Sabbath afternoon. But these extras simply do not have the same sacramental/spiritual/salvific consequences as communion.

To sum up, Ben Shapiro, don't write what you don't know. And while you're at it, go back to Hebrew School -- any Hebrew School or Yeshiva -- for a remedial course in basic Jewish law and basic Jewish manners.

"A delicate balancing act"

Rabbi Gerald Zelizer defends rabbis, priests, imams, and bishops trying to uphold what they understand to be the tenets of their faiths. Even though he "disagree[s] with many theological and moral stances of the Catholic Church," he maintains that "the bishops in these cases are acting legitimately in defining religious boundaries as they understand them."

Well put.

Genocide in Sudan

The Chicago Tribune warns readers of the emergent genocide in Sudan, by the government in Khartoum against black Muslims in Darfur.

About AIPAC

Senator Ernest Hollings is absolutely right about AIPAC. It's too bad that message is getting lost in all hullabaloo about whether or not his May 6 column was antisemitic.

And besides, why is it antisemitic to assess whether or not U.S. policy is organized around supporting the "Greater Israel" agenda? I would expect such an agenda to be supported by neoconservative Jews and Christian Zionists. Hollings's mistake--willful or not--was not to mention the Christian Zionist influence in the Bush administration.

But one more time, so we're all on the same page:
The State of Israel is not the same thing as Judaism.
Judaism is not the same thing as the State of Israel.

Holy Typo, Batman!

For your amusement, from The LA Times:

•  Thou shalt commit adultery, Exodus 20:14.

•  The murderer shall surely be put together, Numbers 25:18.

•  The fool hath said in his heart there is a God, Psalm 14:1.

•  Printers have persecuted me without a cause, Psalm 119:161.

•  Blessed are the place-makers, Matthew 5:9.

•  He hath ears to ear, let him hear, Matthew 11:15.

•  Let the children first be killed, Mark 7:27.

•  Go and sin on more, John 8:11.

•  Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God, 1 Corinthians 6:9.

•  I will … that women adorn themselves in modern apparel, 1 Timothy 2:9.

•  These are murderers, complainers, Jude 16.

LA Times: Muslims Pray for Peace in Middle East

This Los Angeles Times story (thanks to onReligion for the link) reports on a peace vigil organized by the influential Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Its senior adviser, Dr. Maher Hathout, "told the 200 gathered 'to pray to Allah — to pray to God. We turn to him because everyone else has turned us down. ...If we are sincere, Allah can listen to one person, two persons — he can ignore millions. ...We are praying for ourselves since no one else is praying for us.'"

These are people of faith who feel alone in the world. These are Americans who feel alone in the world. It's not just God who should hear their prayers for peace.

A Muslim in Christendom

Pennsylvania's York Daily Record has a heart-warming of Eilina Al-Hakimi's year in the United States. Faith wins--for both Christians and Muslims.

Thanks to CT's weblog for this link.

However these conflicts are resolved, it should be Catholics deciding how.

Jim Slagle of Oregonian Religion Blog has it about right:

...My position is that the Catholic Church should have the right to define themselves, their leadership structure, and their own doctrines, including who is eligible to participate in their own sacraments. The alternative to this is that those who do not agree with Catholic doctrine should get veto power on the definition of Catholicism. This seems absurd.

"Separation of School and State"?

Bartholomew notes that the Southern Baptist proposal to withdraw children from public schools is just the tip of the iceberg.

And these once religiously libertarian Baptists are getting support from Reconstructionists like Gary North....

Conspiracy Theories?

Bill Cork challenges my reading of the IRD story (click on the comments link for our back-and-forth).

There's a point that I made there that I want to reiterate here: I'm not taking sides on the theology of IRD (not even on its attitude toward democracy, to which I have a political objection, not a theological one). My concern is strategic/organizational. IRD and its supporters should be transparent about what they're doing and not apologize for it: say that mainline Protestant denominations are beyond theological and moral repair and that what's needed is a complete rethinking of the nature and structure of Protestant churches in America.

But it's important to remember that orthodoxy & heresy and apostasy & renewal have a long history. This is just one more round.

It's all about the power

And now for my 100th blogpost....

Haaretz asks, "Why, for God s sake, aren t they getting married?"

Choice quotes:

"For my girlfriends, a real relationship is more important than the future of the Jewish people."

Without a doubt, unmarried women are a threat to society...

Hip-hop joins the emergent church

The Herald-Sun of North Carolina reports on the birth of a "hip-hop church ...to reflect the clothing, music, and thinking of a counter-culture movement that has become a powerful and profitable influence over the past two decades"-- and the service merits an entertainment listing.

Note the order: clothing, music, and thinking. This is consistent with other shifts apparent in the emergent church movement that began with the seeker church movement. (This applies to Jewish groups, as well.) The point is that it's more about connection than cognition, more about materiality than propositional morality.

It's not always a right-wing conspiracy

Are right-wing Christians becoming born-again environmentalists? Yes, naturally" (Dallas Morning News).

But does it explain Atlantis?

Scientist argues that flood in about 6,000 B.C. didn't cover the earth but did change history (Dallas Morning News).

Those who ignore the past....

Haven't seen this anywhere except Religionreview: the newly-admitted EU nation of Estonia has just witnessed "the unveiling of a monument to an SS officer" and a member of Parliament attended the ceremony.

Not so good.

The Cultural Politics of Red and Blue

Left Behind vs. Will & Grace?, asks Terry Mattingly for GetReligion.

"...Who is doing a better job of evangelism? The creators of HBO and the world of sitcoms, or the evangelicals who are supposed to actively trying to win people to their view of life and eternity? ...Someone needs to do some major research into the impact of entertainment media on the lives of ordinary, supposedly conservative people out there in 'Christian America.' Would people like Dr. James Dobson actually want to know the results?"

Indeed.

From the National Review to the Dallas Morning News

Andrew McCarthy's call for supporting moderate Islam is getting some attention.

David Brooks on the Middle East

"Don't look for glorious handshakes on the White House lawn. But we could see a series of grudging unilateral actions that will lead to less death. These days, that's cause for giddy celebration."

I'm not convinced that "the myth of Greater Israel" has been "punctured," nor even that the supporters of and believers in this myth have been persuaded otherwise--whether in Israel or in American churches and synagogues--but these days, any cause for cautious optimism is worth at least a toast.

Hear, hear.

"An Army of One"

As Spc. Darby showed, an act of conscience can change the world.

Dave Barry's Ten Commandments

If we followed these rules, we'd be a lot closer to peace on earth (or at least in the supermarket line).

Slovak Catholic Bishops and Alleged DVD Piracy (3 guesses which film)

The Slovak newspaper SME reports (in Slovak) that the television station JOJ (pronounced "yoy") has evidence that pirated DVDs of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ are being circulated--and sold--in Slovak churches and rectories.

The lessons we've learned so far from the film's promoters:
...violence in movies is bad (except in The Passion).
...Catholic theology is bad for Protestants (except in The Passion).
...And film piracy is bad (except in The Passion)?

And conservatives are worried about who takes communion because it might make people think that Church rules can be bent or broken?

Agents of Denominational Schism?

The New York Times reports extensively on The Institute on Religion and Democracy , an organization the Times claims is behind splits among Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists.

The IRD's Board of Directors includes a panoply of conservative religious leaders, not only Protestants but Catholics as well (intriguing for a group whose work is focused on "seven mainline denominations," according to the IRD mission statement).

IRD's mission statement includes the "judgment that Western representative democracy is, on balance, a good worthy of advancing." Not the most ringing endorsement, and somewhat worrisome given the group's indirect ties to Christian Reconstructionism via Board of Directors member Roberta Green Ahmanson, wife of Howard Ahmanson. (see Better Angels for a more complete genealogy of this relationship).

Do the general memberships of these denominations know that they are being disrupted not by internal factions but rather by an external coordinating body that has not only no denominational loyalty but rather, indeed, a considerable antipathy to the denominations in question?

The Truth Behind Penicillin

This review of Eric Lax's new book, The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat, brings fond memories to mind.

I had the pleasure of getting to know the late Dr. Norman Heatley when I was a student in Lincoln College, Oxford, and I had the privilege of accepting, on behalf of Lincoln's Lord Florey Society, a gift from Dr. Heatley of one of the original bedpans used to mass-produce penicillin during World War II. (The bedpan made a rather unique addition to the vault containing the College silver.)

Although in his late 80s when I knew him, Dr. Heatley was a gentle-hearted soul who never quite received the recognition he deserved but never would have presumed to seek it for himself. I am sorry he did not live to see the publication of a book such as this one, which has a good chance of setting the record straight.

Judaism and Proselytizing

Why did the Jewish Journal ask Dennis Prager to write about seeking converts to Judaism when the modern pioneer of the concept, the distinguished Rabbi Harold Schulweis, is a local Angeleno?

And why doesn't Prager acknowledge Rabbi Schulweis's efforts?

Americans are learning to (fill in the blank) Islam....

Aljazeera has an interesting story on the development of American attitudes toward Islam over the past 2-1/2 years.

The report cites a Pew Forum study showing that "forty-four per cent of Americans agreed that Islam is more likely than other religions 'to encourage violence among its believers. In March 2002, only six months after 9/11, just 25% expressed this view."

And uncertainty has increased: "An October 2003 ABC News poll shows that 73% of Americans do not feel they 'have a good basic understanding of Islam’s beliefs and tenets', up from 61% in January 2002."

The article concludes that while "some contend that the road to a lucid understanding of the world's most misunderstood faith will continue to be long and arduous," others are hopeful that Islam will continue to find its home in America's "integrated and diverse community of nations...."

Left Behind and Harry Potter

It's not quite Umberco Eco on the religious differences between PCs and Macs, but Steven Waldman's comparison of the Left Behind series and the Harry Potter series makes for provocative reading.

Religioscope/Indo-Asian News Service on the Wig Ban

Orthodox Judaism: wigs made from the hair of Hindu women not kosher, a story from the Indo-Asian News Service, adds two interesting points:

1. It's not just about Indian wigs. Dayan [Judge] Dunner, who traveled to India to do first-hand research on the matter, has asked Jewish women "to refrain from wearing any human hair wig until guidelines can be put in place."

2. There are real economic consequences, in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, for wig-sellers who now have no market for their Indian (and presumably all human-hair) wigs.

Suggestion: why not sell the wigs to medical supply shops or donate them to cancer treatment centers?

Why Religious Studies is important

Relapsed Catholic discusses Islam, jihad, and beheading.

The discussion makes the mistake of assuming that, for example, Irshad Manji is any more of an authority on the subject than David Frum, whom the discussion cites.

If the conversation cited actual scholars of Islamic legal history and philosophy, then it might be worth taking it more seriously. But Frum-v-Manji just doesn't cut it.

God and the European Constitution

Seven EU countries on Friday sent a letter to the Irish presidency of the European Union to press for inclusion of a reference to Christianity in the future European constitution (EUBusiness). The seven countries formally demanding a mention of Christianity are the Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia.

Meanwhile, the Christian Democratic candidate for president of Germany, in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgeimeine Zeitung, asked, "How can a European identity be formed without a reference to Europe's Christian history? To me, Christianity is and will remain a fundamental element of European identity. For this reason, I would like to see the EU constitution make a reference to God."

Currently the EU draft constitution refers to "Europe's cultural, religious and humanist heritages."

I find this somewhat ironic: the United States, one of the most religious countries in the world, makes no mention of God or Christianity in its Constitution. The European Union, while certainly not nearly as anti-religous as some Americans would like to think, is home to some of the most secular countries in the world.

It is furthermore ironic that of the six semi-successful attempts so far to unite Europe, only two have been specifically Christian (Charlemagne and Charles V). The others have been polytheistic (Rome), non-theistic (Napoleon and the EU itself), or anti-Christian (Hitler). So it seems to be that there's nothing particularly Christian or even religious about European unification.

Perhaps there will be a compromise involving the word "God" or "divine" (remember, this has to be be translatable into 20+ languages). Somehow, though, I don't think the word "God" or "Christianity" in the EU Constitution will make much of a difference--and it will serve only to exclude those who do not worship God as Christians. But maybe that's the point: to remind Jews and Muslims that their historical contributions to Europe don't really count, and to tell Buddhists, Hindus, and others that Europe will never really be their home.

I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but so far the language is quite exclusivist and reflects fear more than hope.

Remember the "seamless garment"?

Whatever happened to the seamless garment? It's alive and well at Mount St. Mary's College of Emmitsburg, Maryland:

EMMITSBURG, Md. (AP) -- Mount St. Mary's College said it withdrew an honorary degree promised to its commencement speaker, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, amid a faculty-led protest over his support for the death penalty.

[...]

A petition signed by 61 faculty members and students said Gonzales' public record is ``glaringly incompatible'' with the school's mission. The petition noted that as legal counsel to then Texas Gov. George W. Bush, Gonzales advised on cases in which 57 people were executed.

Hmmm....

A woman is accused of pouring boiling oil on her boyfriend's face in an argument over a Bible verse.

Read it to believe it.

Honorable opponents

GetReligion reports a positive development: Planned Parenthood quells an anti-Curves backlash.

Although the owners of Curves (a gym franchise), support pro-life activities, Planned Parenthood's representatives declined to condemn them because the organizations they support provide important medical services to people who wouldn't otherwise receive them and because they do not demonstrate against PP.

At least someone out there knows how to compete honorably in service of the common good.

Aljazeera on Jewish law and collateral damage

With a blunt headline--"Rabbi supports killings in Rafah"--Aljazeera is the only news outlet reporting that Rabbi Dov Lior, Chairman of the Jewish Rabbinical Council, was quoted as saying "during warfare, killing non-Jewish civilians is permitted if it saves Jewish lives".

It goes on to report, "He added that Jewish lives were more important than non-Jewish lives" and quoted him saying that "a thousand non-Jewish lives are not worth a Jew's fingernail."

None of the other outlets reporting this story (Maariv, Haaretz, Arutz Sheva) quote any of this.

However, none of the other outlets did the kind of follow-up reporting that Aljazeera did to note that while many rabbis condemned this ruling, "it is clear that Lior's views and interpretation of Jewish Law enjoy far more popularity and acceptance than [other] relatively dovish interpretations."

As in other fundamentalist religious streams, the lowest common denominator too often is the one most popular on the street.

Hilaire Belloc via the Charlotte Observer: Islam a Christian heresy

Tom Ashcraft of the Charlotte Observer deploys Hillaire Belloc to claim that Islam is at heart a Christian heresy.

This is foolish -- dare I say stupid? -- and insulting.

It is also logically rather dangerous, since according to Belloc's definition of heresy,

a "dislocation of some complete and self-supporting scheme by the introduction of a novel denial of some essential part therein" that has "'creative power' and survives by the truth it retains

then Christianity itself is merely a Jewish heresy.

I don't think we want to go there, do we now?

(See Domenico Bettinelli, Jr., at Bettnet.com for another perspective.)

Structural issues in the Anglican Communion

The Associated Press reports on a variety of proposals to resolve the crisis in the Anglican Communion. It seems that the ordination of Bishop Robinson revealed, rather than created, the fault lines in the worldwide church.

What's good for Kerry & McGreevey is good for Schwarzenegger

John Leo, to the point, as usual.

Do the Catholic bishops have the courage to deny communion to a Republican? Certainly it would prove that this isn't about politics.

But religion is almost always about politics.

Irshad Manji continues her campaign against Koranic literalism

Sometimes I feel like I'm reading recycled liberal Christian polemics. But the point is often well made: "Compassion and contempt exist side by side, as they do in every sacred book."

Religious Violence in Kosovo

Lawrence Uzzell of International Religious Freedom Watch assesses the latest religious violence in Kosovo, this time against Orthodox Christians.

I always do a double-take whenever I read articles about anti-Christian persecution, so I checked out Uzzell. It turns out he has a solid reputation as a balanced analyst. Moreover, he has an explanation for why I do my double-take:

[U.S. reports on international religious freedom] too often ...create the impression that Washington’s purpose is not to help indigenous religious minorities, but to clear the path for American missionaries.

That seems about right to me--at least, it correlates with my last blog on the topic.

Memo to Joe Lieberman

This "Campagin Confidential" note by E.J. Kessler in the Forward, about Senator Joe Lieberman's speech to AIPAc, captures just about everything that needs to be said: "On the Democratic side, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman delivered a speech to the conference that seemed designed to put the party of Roosevelt to the right of Bush on several matters. Discussing Sharon's disengagement plan, Lieberman said, 'Israel cannot and will not return to its pre-1967 borders,' repeating the promise that Bush did not utter. He added, 'Palestinians have a right of return — not to Israel, to a Palestinian state.' Lieberman, an author of the Jerusalem Embassy Act, also exhorted Bush to attend to the 'unfinished business' of moving the embassy. Bush, who campaigned on a pledge to move the embassy, has broken that pledge by invoking the act's national security waiver repeatedly. In typical Lieberman style, the speech was heavy on biblical quotation and sermonic cadences, causing more than one wag to remark that Lieberman missed his calling and should have become a rabbi."

Memo to Joe:
1. You're giving centrist Democrats a bad name. I'm a proud DLC Democrat, but I'm ashamed of your anti-anti-torture, pro-settler rhetoric. Are you a Democrat or a Likudnik?
2. You're giving Jewish politicians a bad name. Get out in front on a few issues other than Israel--for example, why is the Bush administration steering your beloved "faith-based" financial support almost exclusively to Christian organizations?

I know these lists are supposed to come in threes, but whatever I think up for #3 just isn't printable.

When Haaretz and the National Review agree...

A Marshall Plan for moderate Islam?

Yehuda Bauer, writing in Haaretz, April 6, 2004: "The sole possibility of fighting an ideology of mass murder disseminated by radicals is to encourage the opposition to them within their own people and faith. ...If they want to survive, [the West and its allies] will have to invest capital in the cultural and economic development of the Muslim world. Diplomatic alliances with opponents of the radicals, along with use of legal and military force against groups and individuals identified as activists"

Andrew McCarthy, writing in the National Review Online, May 13, 2004: "We seek to embrace moderate Muslims; to promote them, and to help them win the struggle for what kind of religious, cultural and social force Islam will be in the modern world. ...It could make the War on Militant Islam a war we can win — for ourselves and for the millions of Muslims who need our help."

When liberals and conservatives agree on something, we should take note.

I don't even know where to begin

Settler Rabbi: Killing innocent people in war is allowed if saves lives, reports Maariv International.

Is it the reference to "so called innocent lives"?
Maybe it's the suggestion that avoiding civilian casualties is a matter of "foreign morals."
Or, again, it's the use of "innocent" in quotation marks.

I wonder if this license to kill "innocents" applies also to settlers whose resistance to withdrawal "accidentally" causes a few "innocent" deaths....

The JTA wigs out

In which we learn that "in Cleveland, a fervently Orthodox school closed for a day because the female teachers didn’t know what to wear over their hair."

It's nice to be right.

The JTA reports that faculty hold the key to
improving Israel’s image on campus.

I argued as much nearly two months ago.

Separated at Birth?

The Forward has a story on Daniel Boyarin's new book about the origins of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

I heard Professor Boyarin speak this past Monday at a lunchtime seminar (part of a UCLA Center for Jewish Studies conference on the Ethics of the Neighbor)--his parsing of rabbinic midrashim about martyrdom and martyrology revealed how dependent these 4th-century texts were on earlier Christian martyrologies, particularly that of Eusebius.

At a time when Christianity was transforming itself from a religion of subversion to a state-sponsored hegemon, it is interesting to think that rabbis were using Jewish texts to say to their estranged siblings, "Hey, you're more like us than you are like the Romans, but we're better at martyrdom than you are!"

To sum up: read this book, as well as its prequel, Dying for God, which focuses in on the question of Jewish and Christian martyrs.

Aljazeera scoops a major religion story

Singh to be first Sikh PM of India, reports Aljazeera. He is the first non-Hindu to lead the Indian government, stepping in after Sonia Gandhi, who would have been the first foreign-born Indian PM, declined the post.

Is anyone out there covering the reactions of the Sikh diaspora to this signficant development?

When it comes to The Passion, even no news is news

Thanks to the CT Weblog, we know that in Botswana, The Passion of the Christ fascinates only a few.

It is news, apparently, that

Mel Gibson’s acclaimed film, The Passion of the Christ, which took the international movie industry by storm, has not generated as much interest here.

Klinghoffer: "In God, and the GOP, They Trust"

I usually like what David Klinghoffer has to say. Not this time: "It may be too much to suggest that God himself is a Republican. Then again, it may not."

Bad journalism.
Bad politics.
Bad theology.
(Even for Republicans.)

Rabbis for Human Rights

Don Lattin of the San Francisco Chronicle has a long-overdue profile of Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights.

Muskogee's French Connection

A sixth-grade Muslim girl in Oklahoma can wear a head scarf to school under a settlement between the school district and the Justice Department, officials announced Wednesday.

You have to read it to believe it. The most outrageous line is that school officials claimed that "other students were "frightened" by [the sixth-grader's] scarf."

Life lessons from elementary school:
1. If we fear something, it must be because it's bad.
2. Bad things should be banned.
3. Therefore, we should ban what we fear.

And it's working out so well for the French, too.

GetReligion on Newsweek on Left Behind

I'm not sure what to make of this GetReligion analysis of Newsweek's coverage of the "Left Behind" series's appeal. Douglas Leblanc faults Newsweek for its focus on literalism to the exclusion of other explanations for LB's popularity. It would have been nice, though, if Leblanc had suggested some of those other explanations.

Please see my earlier post for a link to a more comprehensive story on the issue.

Christian Zionists at the White House

Bartholomew has an update on the White Houses's dealings with Christian Zionists. Mostly it's a link to a recent Village Voice story on the subject, but he also tracks down weblinks to the players mentioned in the Voice piece.

Evangelical ethnicity

I've been thinking about the underlying agenda of some of the more unexpected elements of the evangelical revival of the past quarter century or so. This rather sarcastic Salon report sheds further light on what I call "evangelical ethnicity." Arranged marriages, of course, serve important functions in conservative streams of ethnically-based religions, such as Judaism, Sikhism, and, to lesser degrees, parts of Hinduism and Islam.

Suggestions that evangelicals are pursuing arranged matches is, I think, further evidence that there is substantial concern in the subculture about both physical and cultural reproduction, and that some version of "evangelical ethnicity" may well be emerging.

I have some more thoughts about this, but I have to save something for my dissertation!

Terry Mattingly on "'Passion' aftershocks"

Terry Mattingly's report on the aftermath of The Passion covers a discussion at a "global cinema conference." It's an interesting story, but I think the more compelling angle is what the popularity--and controversy--of the movie tells us about the present and future of American religious life. That's what Michael Berenbaum and I try to do in our volume of academic reflections (forthcoming from AltaMira), but journalists often have insights that we academics overlook....

"Us vs. Them Christianity"

Graydon Royce of the Minneapolis-St. Paul Tribune reports for the Scripps Howard News Service on the various responses to the bestselling "Left Behind" series and the implications its popularity has for theology and politics. The three main objections:

Catholics have railed against the idea promoted by "Left Behind" that the church will climb into bed with the Antichrist, including a story line suggesting an American cardinal becomes a confidant of the Beast. Others fear what they call "Christian Zionism," a belief that exalts Israeli expansionism at the same time it assumes that Jews will repent one day of their great national sin and accept Jesus as the messiah. A third concern revolves around the culture of violence and fear inherent in the Rapture.

First hair, now water

Brooklyn's Tap Water Isn't Kosher.

National conversations that really need to start happening

Ha'aretz reports that 38 "intellectuals and politicians" are suing because the State refuses to register 'Israeli' nationality.

Haaretz notes the government's claim that the term "Israeli" would not reflect the "national and ethnic identity" of the plaintiffs.

Hmmm. And Golda Meir said there was no such thing as a "Palestinian." Haven't we moved beyond this kind of thinking?

The only other nationality apparently available for a Jewish citizen of Israel is the "Jewish" nationality. And there's the rub.

In my view, this fight is yet another iteration of the Israeli effort to identify "Israel" with anything and everything Jewish. One consequence of this is the Israeli claim that anti-Zionism is always antisemitism. Another consequence is that violent anti-Zionists take this at face value and thus French Arab Muslims are attacking French Jews because they can't find any "Israelis."

Nationality.
Religion.
Nationalism.
Political nationalism.
Religious nationalism.

Maybe it's time to start talking about the differences between and among them?

What's good for the goose

Bert De Bruin of Dutchblog Israel has it exactly right:

Just as we continuously urge moderate Muslims to denounce and act against the misdeeds of their fanatic co-religionists, it is up to the reasonable and responsible members of the settler community ( I would like to believe that they make up the majority of the settlers ) to condemn the despicable behavior of the fanatics within that community, and to ostracize those zealots. If not, many of us will have a hard time telling the difference between a settler and an enemy of the Jewish state.

Clearly, they're antisemites....

Aljazeera reports that the head of the Jewish Agency has complained that Germany is stealing Israel's Jewish immigrants, to wit--

The government of Israel must take serious steps to counter Germany. This situation drastically affects immigration to Israel. Last year, about 19,000 Jews immigrated to Germany from the FSU whereas only 12,000 came to Israel.

The Jewish Agency chief also faulted the Israeli Chief Rabbinate for "making it difficult for immigrants wanting to convert to Judaism to do so."

Immigration to Israel fell by 31% last year.

Was it because Germany is stealing Israel's Jews and the Chief Rabbinate is preventing conversions?

Or perhaps because when you're looking for a country to which to immigrate, you tend to prefer the one that _isn't_ a war zone?

Public schooling and the republican compact

Bartholomew focuses on the condemnation of "anti-theism" in his post on the proposal before the Southern Baptist Convention to encourage its members to "remove their children from the government schools and see to it that they receive a thoroughly Christian education."

I'm more troubled by the continuing tribalization of education. Roman Catholic parochial schools were established because of blatant anti-Catholic discrimination in public schools at the time; still, they encouraged civic engagement and their classrooms were relatively diverse. But Jewish day schools (orthodox and non-orthodox alike), as well as Christian academies, seem to me to be instinctively isolationist and fearful of the "wider world."

I still recall a paper I heard by Dr. Shaul Kelner of Brandeis University at the Association for Jewish Studies 2001 meetings, in which he reported findings that 80% of attendees of non-orthodox Jewish day schools have no non-Jews among their closest friends. If that's the figure for non-orthodox day schools, I can't imagine what the figure is for orthodox ones, even Modern Orthodox ones.

It strikes me that part of the underlying agenda of the SBC resolution is that "our children" should not be exposed to people and fact -- let alone opinions and ideas -- that "we" don't like. To me, that runs counter to the spirit of democratic civil society, and bodes ill for the future of our republic.

But the people who most need to hear this opinion probably don't read blogs, least of all mine.

Summer attractions, religious-style

Here are the Religion Newswriters Association's Top 10 suggestions for religion stories.

Religion 101 for Texas: Belief in a god or god is not what defines a religion!

Thanks to Religion News Blog for the note on this Knight-Ridder story reporting that Texas has denied tax-exempt status to a Unitarian church because "the organization does not have one system of belief'" and because it does not "mandate belief in a supreme being."

This is bad policy, with no basis in law or theory. The U.S. Supreme Court long ago took belief in God out of the equation when considering what is and is not religion. Moreover, it has been decades since those of us "in the know"--scholars of religion--have held to such a narrow definition.

From a policy standpoint, far more compelling is a functionalist "family resemblances" approach: does it look like a church (synagogue, mosque, temple, etc.)? does it behave like a church? does it have member? does it have services that a reasonable observer would describe as religious? does it quack like a duck?

Kind of like Justice Potter Stewart's definition of pornography....

Defining "violence" in Canada's new anti-violence law

Fox News's report on Canada's important and commendable new law banning incitement to violence against gays and lesbians may be so much "anti-political correctness"-correctness, but I wouldn't put it past a plaintiff to try to litigate against the Bible.

It raises uncomfortable questions about the limits of religious freedom and the use of religious texts. Would it become illegal for to recite the holiness code in Leviticus as part of ritual readings of the Bible? Or would it simply be illegal for conservative preachers to threaten gays and lesbians with hellfire and brimstone?

I would support the latter--for a good argument against humiliation from the pulpit, see orthodox Rabbi Steven Greenberg's new book, Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition--but definitely not the former. Frankly, such an expansive reading of the new law would be as absurd as Daniel Goldhagen's demand that the Roman Catholic Church rewrite the New Testament to take out the antisemitic parts. Erasing the uncomfortable bits doesn't resolve the issue--it simply hides it.

BBC: "Hezbollah's Passion Play"

Hmmm. The BBC has a story that the Hezbollah's TV station "has adapted the trailer for the film The Passion of the Christ into a station ident[ification] reflecting the channel's anger over events in Iraq."

You have to read the story to get the full flavor. But it makes South Park's The Passion of the Jew look tame by comparison.

Talk about coopting a message.

What's next, the terachurch?

The Washington Post reports that there are now two categories of "really big churches":
Megachurches attract 2,000-10,000 people per weekend.
Gigachurches attract 10,000+ people weekend.

Since these are Protestant worship services, I assume this involves parallel, rather than serial, processing....

But seriously, The Post also notes that the venerable (!) Willow Creek Community Church (17,000+ per weekend) has lost its flagship status to Lakewood Church of Houston, TX, which attracts more than 25,000 people each weekend.

The mega/gigachurch phenomenon is expanding faster than ever; reasons, according to The Post, include

the surge in evangelical Christianity; the trend toward high-energy and high-tech worship; national seminars for church leaders on how to improve programming; and the range of small-group opportunities for Bible study, emotional support and other purposes that a large congregation can provide.

So people are attending ever-larger congregations in order to take part in ever more individualized niche-marketed small groups. What happens when the Mall of America meets God? (Actually, there is a church at the Mall of America.)

[The Post notes that the U.S. has yet to catch up with Korea, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and Indonesia, where multiple churches report weekend attendance above 20,000. In Seoul, the Yoido Full Gospel Church has 800,000 members and attracts 100,000 per weekend (in three locations).]

Abdullah to Arafat: Take "a long look in the mirror"

In a highly unusual move, Jordan's King Abdullah told The New York Times >The New York Times that

I think Arafat needs to have a long look in the mirror to be able to see whether his position is helping the Palestinian cause or not. ...I know that there are discussions inside the Palestinian leadership of this idea of him becoming president and giving the prime minister more authority. ...If this allows the Palestinians to get beyond the obstacle that they are facing now with the United States and Israel, then that's something the Palestinians need to sort out and sort out quickly,.

The comment follows his statement, as reported in The Daily Star of Lebanon, at the closing ceremonies of the 50-nation World Economic Forum at the Shuneh Dead Sea resort that

We must bring justice for the Palestinians. We must offer security for the Israelis.

While Jordan long has been a quiet friend and even partner for Israel, such comments suggest a new stage in the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--if other moderate Arab states follow Abdullah's lead.

In a break with past practice, last year, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak suggested that Egypt's support for Arafat would last only as long as Arafat's leadership actually benefited the Palestinian people. King Abdullah's rhetoric shifts the onus even further onto the PLO Chairman. There seems no doubt that Israeli unilateralism is making many Arab leaders nervous. Since bi- and multi-lateralism require the existence of a credible Palestinian partner, the ball seems clearly to be in Arafat's court.

Hijacking the American Jewish Agenda

This makes me sick to my stomach. It's about half a step away from people saying, "So-and-so isn't American; he's Jewish." And this time, it's not fascist nationalism talking--it's American Jews.

JTA's report, "of Bush trumps domestic agenda," opens with a stunner:

Don Shein disagrees with President Bush on the environment. He disagrees with Bush on stem-cell research. And he disagrees with Bush on abortion.

But he’s voting for Bush anyway.

For Shein, a financial adviser from Baltimore, the 2004 presidential election is about only one thing: Israel.

With all due respect, Mr. Shein, are you a U.S. citizen or an Israeli citizen? And if you are a U.S. citizen, shouldn't you be voting in America's best interests? (You may indeed conclude that Mr. Bush is better for America, but I believe that the interests of the country of your citizenship should dictate your vote.)

Let me be clear: I am an American citizen. I am Jewish. When I vote in national, state, and local elections, I vote (to the best of my ability) for the most qualified candidate of whatever background (religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.) whose platform and agenda seem to me to be in the best interests of my city, state, and/or nation. It's really that simple. I love Israel, but I'm a U.S. citizen.

The None Zone?

The Corvallis Gazette-Times reports on Religion and Public Life in the Pacific Northwest: The None Zone, edited by Patricia Killen and Mark Silk. The book is part of a series on "Religion by Region" edited by Mark Silk of Trinity College's Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life and published by AltaMira Press.

The series continues with Religion and Public Life in the Mountain West: Sacred Landscapes in Tension, edited by Jan Shipps and Mark Silk, due out at the end of May.

The series looks to be a good corrective to simplistic "red state - blue state" analyses, one which will reveal the nuances in religion and public life at the important "meso" level, between the micro (local) and the macro (national). That's the level that lets us identify as Westerners, or Midwesterners, or Southerners, or New Englanders--and religion has a great deal to do with these sorts of identities.

Full disclosure: AltaMira is publishing Michael Berenbaum's & my book, After The Passion is Gone: American Religious Consequences, to which Mark Silk is a contributor. Jan Shipps is a colleague with whom I've had the pleasure to work during the 2003 and 2004 UCSB-Fulbright American Studies Institute.

Feeling whiggish....

There's something ironic about reports of bonfires set by orthodox Jewish men and women seeking to destroy wigs made from Indian hair. After all, sacred fires are part of certain South Asian religious rituals.

More intriguing, though, is this comment:

"They just found out that the wigs are derived from Hindu hair,'' said Miriam Friedman,25...

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Note that the rabbinic prohibition has to do with how the hair was used when it was cut, not its identity (can hair be Hindu?). It's a good example of the slippage that occurs during a moral panic. It's not enough that ordinary hair may have been misused (from the Jewish perspective); the hair itself has to be "othered" and implicitly demonized.
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Again with the wigs

Dr. Diana L. Eck, Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University, has weighed into the wig debate on RISA-L:

I responded at length to an inquiry of this sort from a group of rabbis some ten or fifteen years ago. They were concerned then that hair is "offered" to the deity, which is quite untrue. The hair is shaven, whether at Tirupati, Sinhachalam, the Christian shrine at Vailankanni or elsewhere in order that one present oneself to the deity hair-less, so to speak. The hair is not "offered" to the deity, but is a by-product of a religious rite in which hair is left behind. The locution "hair offering center" which is often used for the tonsure centers at the periphery of these shrines, is something of a misnomer and it is this that is most-likely at the root of the present concerns.

There are other posts to RISA-L that take a less definitive view; representative of them is one by Robert Zydenbos of the University of Munich:

...The way the Indian hair is obtained as a rule has some ritual aspect to it; but as I have seen it, the hair is not cut in a temple, not before a murti, and there is no priest present who performs rituals. It is rather a matter of a vow individually made by the devotee, who privately promises the god that s/he will go to a particular temple and have him/herself shaven (either as penance, out of a sense of guilt over something, or as part of a supplication, or as a sign of gratitude after the coming true of a wish). S/he then goes to a kshetra, has a barber shave her/his head, and then s/he goes to the temple to present her/himself before the god. The barber's shop (which in some kshetras can be quite large, for this purpose) can be a street or two away from the temple.

(Thanks to Dr. Marcy Braverman for forwarding the relevant RISA-L posts.)

My understanding, however, from what I've read on Frumteens is that the uncertainty surrounding the matter creates a "sfek sfeika" (double doubt), in which case the more lenient position (in this case, permitting the wigs) may be taken (see The Israel Koschitzky Virtual Beit Midrash for a lengthier explanation).

Hirhurim has additional material arguing for a lenient position (look for posts called "Avodah Zarah VI," "Avodah Zarah V," and so on.) "Avodah Zarah" means "idol worship," which is the issue at hand: if the hair from which the wigs are made was used in idol worship, it is forbidden for Jews to derive any benefit (such as wearing a wig) from that hair.

There is a "program unit" of the American Academy of Religion (the main professional academic society for scholars of religion in the United States) called the Comparative Studies in Hinduisms and Judaisms Group. It's co-chaired by a good friend, Dr. Kathryn McClymond. Perhaps that group will take up the wig episode one of these years....

Why Opponents of Gay Marriage Aren't Getting Much Support

The New York Times reports that efforts to ban same-sex marriages aren't getting much support (thanks to onReligion.com for the heads-up).

It's hard to rally people to take positive action _against_ something. Anti-war rallies bill themselves as pro-peace rallies. Anti-abortion rallies bill themselves as pro-life rallies. But it's hard to figure out what people interested in banning same-sex marriage actually are _for_.

Heterosexuality? Not really slogan material.

Opposite-sex marriage? Since that's the norm, it's like rallying in favor of blue skies.

Reproduction? Same-sex couples have kids, too. And not just by adoption.

"Family values"? Americans are used to so many different kinds of families that it's hard to imagine same-sex couples (and their children) not fitting into the mosaic of American family life.

Tradition? OK, if you have a religious commitment that explicitly values tradition and community, such as orthodox Judaism or Roman Catholicism. But evangelical Protestants have sacrificed quite a bit on the altar of individual experience, valuing one-on-one relationships over the collective whole.

So far, the anti-gay marriage activists largely have built their campaigns around fear. And apparently there's a lot to be afraid of these days--maybe people just are tired of being told that there's yet another bogeyman in the closet (no pun intended).

Traditional communities like orthodox Judaism and Roman Catholicism have "hate the sin but love the sinner" built into their theologies, making soundbite-friendly civic activism on this topic very difficult (or at least unpalatable for the 6-o'clock news). Pro-gay marriage activists can and do use language of love, individual freedom, and stable monogamous family relationships (well, maybe not so many syllables).

Unless anti-gay marriage activitists can figure out what they're _for_, and define it in a way that is fresh and provocative--and to be honest, I sincerely doubt they can--then this will be a losing battle for them. Personally, I think that the state should get out of the marriage business all together, and perform civil unions (providing civil benefits) without regard to sexual orientation. Then religious groups can get on with the business of blessing the kinds of unions they see fit to endorse, and defending their constitutionally guaranteed religious freedom to make such choices.

Separation of church and state? Now that's something I could rally for.

Religious messianism, and a willingness to sacrifice their followers and others for absolutist visions, along with a certain disdain for man-made laws

are what Tom Friedman suggests Moktada al-Sadr & the Mahdi Army have in common with extremist Jewish settlers in Israel.

It's an instructive point, one which echoes the cautions Ian Buruma gave in his August 2003 essay, "How to Talk About Israel," against elevating what is basically a political conflict into a cosmic one.

And there is, indeed, a parallel to Joshua Wolf Shenk's argument in Mother Jones that "Bush and his party know how to tell a good story and their opponents do not."

As my teacher Mark Juergensmeyer [Terrorism & Political Violence 3, no. 3 (1991): 101], has pointed out, the narrative of cosmic war is extraordinarily powerful and deeply appealing in times of existential uncertainty. It is this narrative that undergirds the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Matrix trilogy, and The Passion of the Christ--all box office smash hits, perhaps for that very reason. It is this narrative that helps animate evangelical Protestant--not to mention extremist religious Zionist and Islamist--theologies.

In short, it is very appealing and very dangerous.

Academic Integrity and Political Insanity

Mark Kleiman links to this story in the Washington Post.

An analysis written by an agricultural economics professor at UC Davis (written on vacation time, I might add) appears to be the basis for a World Trade Organization ruling against the United States.

The vice chairman of the California Cotton Growers Association told the Post that Professor Daniel Sumner "joined forces with the enemy." Since when are we at war with Brazil?

Even worse, the Dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis seems not to understand the basic principles of academia. He announced, "I question his judgment. It's a matter of, in any organization, if you have close working relationships with a broad group of people, you want to think twice about developing relations with their competitor, and doing it in such a public way."

Competitor? Since when is academia about market share?

The logic is that because Professor Sumner is a state employee (a quirk of California's public education system), his loyalty to Californian & American political and economic interests ought to outweigh his loyalty to truth and integrity.

The next step, no doubt: charges against Professor Sumner for violating his loyalty oath (an anti-communist Cold War relic whose time never came but definitely has gone)....

"The changes are often more stylistic than doctrinal...."

An interesting New York Times "week in review" article about the emergent church movement. It's confounding to some, but I've been studying religion & generations since the early 1990s, and it makes sense to me.

...also it's my birthday....

Today in History - May 16

Moral Panic

This is just bizarre: The New York Times > National >Legislators who sponsored Pennsylvania's Defense of Marriage Act are suing two gay men who sought a marriage license in Bucks County.

Playground bullying, if you ask me.

Shared politics, divergent theologies

The news that Israeli rabbis are having second thoughts about their links with evangelical Protestants is getting traction in the media and attention from Religioscope.

Update: There's asking, and then there's asking.

The Washington Post reports that Powell Says Troops Would Leave Iraq if New Leaders Asked.

The Truth About Academic Conferences

Naomichana's got it exactly right. (I _always_ stay in the conference hotel to be closer to the books, not to mention the secret thrill of seeing one's elders and betters slightly sloshed at midnight in the hotel bar and perhaps having the opportunity to join them....)

Mohan, Eck, and Jewish law

Hirhurim has links to some interesting accounts of the on-again, off