Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Is Scientology Self-Destructing?
posted on January 22, 2013At BuzzFeed, Alex Klein looks at the current state of Scientology. Despite claims that 2012 was a “milestone year” for the religion, Klein finds that the religion may be in decline, the result of a “real estate scam” that has angered many of its followers. Klein writes, “To some of these defectors, the structures are metaphors for the religion itself: garish on the outside, empty on the inside. The irony is that the very expansion that Scientology lauds as its renaissance is actually a symbol of internal dissent and decline.”
Europeans Launch Campaign to Declare Life Starts at Conception
posted on January 22, 2013“Anti-abortion groups from 20 different countries have launched a petition to ask the European Parliament to recognize that life begins at conception,” reports Alessandro Speciale at Religion News Service. While abortions in the European Union are regulated by each member state, the petition, known as the “One of Us” initiative, hopes to attract attention to the issue, as well as block EU funding for “activities that entail the destruction of embryos.” According to the website, the initiative has “greater political potential than any other initiative that has been undertaken so far to protect the dignity of the person and life from conception at a European scale.”
Lowering of Missionary Age Expected to Lead to Thousands More Women Serving Mormon Missions
posted on January 22, 2013The Associated Press investigates the consequences of the Mormon church’s decision to lower the minimum age for missionaries from 21 to 19 for women, and from 19 to 18 for men. The new age provides flexibility for women, and also aims to keep young members in the church. Elder David Evans, the executive director of the Mormon church’s Missionary Department, told the AP “that the move is aimed primarily at giving young church members more options to fit a mission in with other plans for college, military and marriage.”
Losing Our Religion
posted on January 18, 2013This week, NPR is airing a series, “Losing Our Religion,” to explore the changing role of religion in the U.S. The series looks at the rise of the religiously unaffiliated and interviews a range of nonbelievers.
Obama’s Use of Scripture Echoes Lincoln, King
posted on January 18, 2013Religion News Service’s Daniel Burke considers the parallels of President Obama’s evocations of Scripture with those of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Abraham Lincoln, the bibles of whom Obama plans to use to take his oath of office. Mary Frances Berry, the co-author of a book that examines the influences of Obama’s speeches, said, “What he wants is to have moral authority. Not just to be president, but to have moral authority. That’s in the black tradition. We talk about the preacher as having moral authority: the ability to convince your audience of the rightness of what you are saying.”
Roe vs. Wade at 40; Pew Poll Finds Abortion Not a Key Issue
posted on January 18, 2013Michael Muskal for the Los Angeles Times writes about a new Pew poll indicating that only 1 in 5 people consider abortion rights to be a critical issue. Muskal also reports that “63% of respondents said that they would not like to see the [Supreme Court] overturn Roe vs. Wade.”
Leon Panetta to Pope Benedict: ‘Pray for Me’
posted on January 18, 2013While visiting Vatican City, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta attended Pope Benedict XVI’s weekly general audience, writes Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post. Receiving a blessing after the address, Whitlock reports that the Pope told Panetta, “Thank you for helping to keep the world safe.”
Obama Picks D.C. Episcopal Priest to Deliver Inauguration Benediction
posted on January 18, 2013President Obama has chosen the Rev. Luis Léon, the pastor of a church neighboring the White House, to deliver the closing prayer at Monday’s inauguration, report Lisa Desjardins and Eric Marrapodi at CNN. The announcement comes a week after the controversial pick, and subsequent resignation, of the Rev. Louie Giglio to deliver the benediction. On his potential remarks, Léon said, “ [W]hen we’re asking a blessing for this country, I think we’re asking God to lift us up, to lift up what’s good in us. To remind us of what’s good in us and remind us to do what’s proper, what’s the good, the right thing for the country.”
The Party Faithful
posted on January 18, 2013David Remnick of The New Yorker chronicles the rise of Naftali Bennett, a conservative Israeli politician. Bennett represents a growing trend of young, conservative Jews in a country that is shifting increasingly to the right. Remnick writes, “To Bennett, there is nothing complex about the question of occupation. There is no occupation. ‘The land is ours’: that is pretty much the end of the debate.”
At a Climate Protest, Science and Religion
posted on January 18, 2013Both science and religious groups advocated for action on climate change outside the White House this Tuesday, reports Jada F. Smith at The New York Times. Smith writes that there has been an increase in the recognition of global warming among religious groups. Bob Coleman, the chief programming minister of the Riverside Church in New York City, said, “This gathering today is to affirm that God has gifted us in many ways, one of which is a good mind to figure out how things are going. It’s not so much an embrace of science, but an acknowledgement that science is a part of us, it’s a part of our own living every day.”