Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Faith on the Hill: The Religious Composition of the 113th Congress
posted on November 19, 2012The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life analyzes the religious background of the newly elected Congress. While most members of Congress are Protestant, Pew notes a series of significant changes and firsts: “The newly elected, 113th Congress includes the first Buddhist to serve in the Senate, the first Hindu to serve in either chamber and the first member of Congress to describe her religion as ‘none,’ continuing a gradual increase in religious diversity that mirrors trends in the country as a whole.”
Read at Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
The Liberal Gloat
posted on November 19, 2012The New York Times’ Ross Douthat declares that the celebration of a bright future for liberalism, buttressed by demographic shifts in the American population, a bit premature. “Consider the Hispanic vote,” writes Douthat. “Are Democrats winning Hispanics because they put forward a more welcoming face than Republicans do—one more in keeping with America’s tradition of assimilating migrants yearning to breathe free? Yes, up to a point. But they’re also winning recent immigrants because those immigrants often aren’t assimilating successfully—or worse, are assimilating downward, thanks to rising out-of-wedlock birthrates and high dropout rates.”
Traverse City Church Defends Muslim Call Ban at Veterans Day Concert
posted on November 19, 2012The Detroit Free Press reports that leaders of church in Traverse City, Michigan, are defending their decision to exclude a Muslim call to prayer, which had been planned as part of an interfaith concert at a local high school on Veterans Day. “The Rev. David Walls of Traverse City’s First Congregational Church says leaders feared it might offend military personnel or their families to hear ‘a prayer in Arabic, addressed to Allah.’”
Fighting for Religious Freedom
posted on November 19, 2012First Things reprints the Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles J. Chaput’s remarks to the Alliance Defending Freedom, which, last week, awarded Chaput the Edmin Meese Award. “[President Obama] has many personal strengths. But the people who staff his administration—including Catholics who clearly know better—have consistently misrepresented the serious issues involved in the HHS mandate debate. As a senior federal judge told me recently from his own case-load experience, key people in this administration simply do not seem to believe in religious freedom in the sense the American Founders originally intended it—in other words, as a distinct human liberty and a priority human right.”
Episcopal Leader Says South Carolina Diocese Can’t Secede
posted on November 19, 2012At Religion News Service Daniel Burke reports that Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote in an open letter to the Diocese of South Carolina, which has threatened to secede from the national church over disagreements about homosexuality and theology, warning the diocese that it cannot take such an action unilaterally. “Disagreement about a variety of issues is normal in this church, and has historically been considered a healthy sign of diversity,” Schori wrote. “Please know that The Episcopal Church wants you to remain!”
Gen. David Petraeus May Have Fallen from Pedestal, but Woe to the ‘Fallen Woman’
posted on November 19, 2012The Washington Post’s Lisa Miller places the Petraeus affair in a historical context of the “fallen woman” and “the professional virgin.” While societies have often forgiven the men who commit adultery, the women involved are often scorned, while the betrayed wives seem to be forced into silence and described in asexual terms. “[F]rom the time Constantine legalized Christianity throughout Rome, the faith from which so many of our cultural assumptions still springs favored and protected men and preserved the invisibility and impotence especially of married women.”
Misapprehending Muslims and the Media’s Misinformation
posted on November 19, 2012At The Huffington Post Hazan Azad writes about the American media’s inability to accurately represent Muslims, the consequences of which are not just that American Muslims feel excluded from being welcome in their own country. It creates a fear among some Americans that “Muslims want to take over America.” “[Americans] are who we are,” writes Azad, “in the truest deepest sense, as a result of our coming to know each other–in the truest, deepest sense.”
With Petraeus, Echoes of That Other Warrior David
posted on November 16, 2012At Religion News Service, Daniel Burke considers the public reaction to the David Petraeus affair, which has been frequently compared to the biblical story of King David. Burke cites John Lee Anderson of The New Yorker who suggests that religion may be Petraeus’ best route: “If he licks his wounds and is seen praying humbly at his local church and does the right thing by his wife and family, America will probably forgive him.”
Rocket Attacks and Airstrikes Resume in Gaza Conflict
posted on November 16, 2012For The New York Times, Isabel Kershner and Fares Akram report on the increased violence between Israel and Hamas. In recent days, both sides have launched numerous rockets, killing both civilians and military personnel. Kershner and Akram note the political importance of the timing of these attacks for Israel: “Attacks on Gaza have been undertaken at a delicate time for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, nine weeks before elections, and may have partly reflected his administration’s own sense that it needed to send a message of deterrence beyond Gaza.”
Wal-Mart Faces a New Round of Historic Strikes…But Why Now?
posted on November 16, 2012Sarah Jaffe of Religion Dispatches discusses the damage to Wal-Mart’s image as a result of this week’s protest. Jaffe believes that the declining importance of Christianity in the company has been a major cause of angry sentiment towards it: “The company embedded itself in a particular brand of free-enterprise-friendly Southern evangelical Christianity that … helped win the loyalty of its massive corps of service workers,” writes Jaffe. “But the combination of longtime workers feeling betrayed by the company, newer workers who never felt that loyalty to begin with, and the fact that for so many years the company paid lip service to Christian values in lieu of fair wages, is leaving Wal-Mart vulnerable to labor uprisings.”