Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Have Consumer Boycotts Gone Too Far?
posted on July 31, 2012At The Christian Science Monitor, G. Jeffrey MacDonald contextualizes the recent calls to boycott Chick-fil-A, after the fastfood franchise’s president, Dan Cathy, voiced his support for traditional marriage. “No one disputes that consumers have a right to boycott … and small businesses still get involved in public initiatives,” writes MacDonald. “But sometimes they pay a hefty price for doing so.”
Read at The Christian Science Monitor
William Booth’s Army of Salvation
posted on July 31, 2012At The Los Angeles Times, Diane Winston celebrates the life and legacy of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, who died 100 years ago next month. “Booth’s message that Christians have an obligation to actively engage in civic life is timely,” writes Winston. “And it’s important to remember what he urged his followers to do.”
Miss. Wedding Refusal Not Indicative of SBC
posted on July 31, 2012At Baptist Press, Diana Chandler reports on the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) response to a recent decision by a predominately white Baptist church in Mississippi, which turned away a black couple who wished to wed in the church. Fred Luter, the SBC’s first African American president, said, “What we can learn from it is that we need to talk to our membership about issues. I think if the pastor would have talked to more members about this … when this situation occurred … it probably would not have happened the way it happened.”
Romney Seems to Back Off Adviser’s Suggestion He Would Support Israeli Strike against Iran
posted on July 30, 2012At The Washington Post, Philip Rucker and Joel Greenberg write that Mitt Romney reiterated his support for Israel’s right “to defend itself, but seemed to back off a foreign policy adviser’s earlier suggestion that he would support a unilateral military strike by Israel against Iran to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapon capability.” The statements came during Romney’s much anticipated visit to Israel, during which the presumptive GOP presidential nominee met with top governmental and military officials, as well as prominent Israeli supporters and donors.
Defining Religious Liberty Down
posted on July 30, 2012The New York Times’ Ross Douthat places the recent fallout over pro-traditional marriage comments by Chick-fil-A franchise president, Dan Cathy, in the context of what Douthat sees as other recent attacks on “the free exercise” of religion, both in the United States and in Germany. “If you want to fine Catholic hospitals for following Catholic teaching, or prevent Jewish parents from circumcising their sons, or ban Chick-fil-A in Boston,” writes Douthat, “then don’t tell religious people that you respect our freedoms. Say what you really think: that the exercise of our religion threatens all that’s good and decent, and that you’re going to use the levers of power to bend us to your will.”
Historic French Churches Face Demolition
posted on July 30, 2012At Deutsche Welle, John Laurenson reports on the fate of some historic Catholic churches in France, which soon might face demolition. “The French government appropriated all church property in 1907–including the cost of maintaining them,” writes Laurenson. “Increasing numbers of local authorities cannot or will not renovate their churches.”
Are Journalists Being Too Harsh to Tablet?
posted on July 30, 2012At The Columbia Journalism Review, Sara Morrison weighs in the responses from some journalists to Tablet‘s controversial July 13 piece by Anna Breslaw, “Breaking Bad Karma: how the cancer victim at the center of the AMC series justifies my skepticism of Holocaust survivors.” Morrison calls it a “big … mistake to judge an entire magazine by one post. [Commentary’s John] Podhoretz and The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg have done this, going beyond blaming Breslaw to denigrating the entire publication.”
Read at Columbia Journalism Review
South Dakota Doctors Ordered to Say Abortions Lead to Suicide
posted on July 30, 2012At Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard reports that a federal appeals court upheld South Dakota’s “informed consent law,” which requires “doctors to tell women seeking abortions that they will face ‘increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide.'” Sheppard notes that South Dakota has recently become a battleground over state legislative efforts to restrict access to abortion. “South Dakota has passed a number of anti-abortion laws in recent years–so many that the state created a separate ‘Life Protection Fund’ to defend them in court,” writes Sheppard.
Was Jesus Lily-White?
posted on July 30, 2012At The Daily Beast, Jamie Reno interviews Edward Blum about his new book, which he co-authored with Paul Harvey, entitled, The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America. Blum argues that the color of Jesus’ skin is a hot campaign issue this year, at least subconsciously. Blum asks, “Why did [Jeremiah] Wright’s jeremiads and visions of a black Jesus so terrify Americans in 2008, and why does the powerful white, blue-eyed imagery of the Jesus of Romney’s Mormon faith arouse no interest? … Neither one is accurate, but only one has generated outrage or gotten much media attention.”
Egypt Unnerved by Rising Religious Fervor
posted on July 30, 2012“Egypt’s recent election of an Islamist president has rekindled a long-suppressed display of public piousness that has aroused both ‘moral vigilantism’ and personal acts of faith,” writes Jeffrey Fleishman for The Los Angeles Times. Recently, fundamentalist groups have harassed women for not wearing veils. One young Egyptian man was killed for walking with his fiancee “by men reportedly linked to a group called the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.” Yet Fleishman also notes that there has been a growing demand to allow police officers and other government employees to wear beards, which were banned under Mubarak’s secular regime because they were seen as a sign of religious fanaticism.