Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Communion on the Moon: The Religious Experience in Space
posted on July 18, 2012The Atlantic’s Rebecca J. Rosen reports how “the secular, scientific work of space exploration cannot shake religion.” Rosen highlight how, before the launch of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft this past weekend, a Russian Orthodox priest blessed the rocket. Throughout the American space missions, many astronauts turned to prayer for safe travels, including Buzz Aldrin who “took communion in the minutes between when he and Neil Armstrong became the first humans on the moon’s surface.” “It’s hard to imagine atheists in foxholes; it is at least as hard to imagine them in space shuttles,” writes Rosen.
‘7 Habits’ Gave Business Guru Stephen R. Covey Fame, Fortune
posted on July 18, 2012Stephen R. Covey, a member of the LDS Church and the best-selling author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, died on Monday at the age of 79, Tom Harvey reports for The Salt Lake Tribune. While Covey got his start as a professor of business management at Brigham Young University, the success of 7 Habits launched Covey’s “second career as management guru for the likes of Saturn, Ritz Carlton, [and] Procter & Gamble.” Harvey writes that Covey’s “books have legions of adherents in corporate America who swear by its principles.”
The Moral Duty to Buy Health Insurance
posted on July 18, 2012Tina Rulli, David Wendler, and Ezekiel J. Emanuel discuss the Affordable Care Act for The Journal of the American Medical Association. They argue, “Because physicians and hospitals have a duty to rescue the uninsured by providing acute and emergency care, individuals have a corresponding duty to purchase insurance to cover the costs of this care.” Rulli, Wendler and Emanuel conclude that the “moral duty [to purchase insurance] provides grounds for an enforceable legal duty because the state has an interest in limiting individuals’ imposition of substantial burdens on others.”
Read at The Journal of the American Medical Association
Can Christianity Be Saved? A Response to Ross Douthat
posted on July 18, 2012At Sojourners, Diana Butler Bass responds to Ross Douthat’s New York Times article in which, according to Bass, Douthat “insists that any denomination committed to contemporary liberalism will ultimately collapse.” Bass notes, however that “[d]ecline is not exclusive to the Episcopal Church, nor to liberal denominations–it is a reality facing the whole of American Christianity.” Bass argues that declining church membership highlights the fact “that Americans have lost confidence in all forms of institutional religion.”
Neo-McCarthyism
posted on July 18, 2012Robert Wright, a senior editor at The Atlantic, criticizes Atlantic medial fellow, Armin Rosen, for engaging in “neo-McCarthyism.” Wright regrets that, on the pages of his own magazine, Rosen called for writer, Alex Kane’s removal from The Daily Beast’s blog, “Israel for Open Zion because … [Kane] is on the staff of Mondoweiss, a website that, according to Rosen, ‘often gives the appearance of an anti-Semitic enterprise.’” But Wright notes, “Rosen doesn’t adduce a shred of evidence that Kane … is anti-Semitic,” and instead employs “guilt by association” to smear Rosen, a tactic that has “an unfortunate history in American politics and intellectual life.”
Ulugbek Kodirov Sentenced to More than 15 Years in Prison for Plot to Kill President Obama
posted on July 17, 2012An immigrant from Uzbekistan, who “pleaded guilty in February to threatening to kill the president, providing material support to terrorism and unlawfully possessing a firearm,” has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison, Jay Reeves reports for The Associated Press. After entering the country on a student visa to study medicine at Columbia University, Ulugbek Kodirov never enrolled, but instead began working at a mall in Alabama. Kodirov’s defense team said that their client grew lonely and turned to the internet where he began corresponding with a person he believed to be member of an anti-American, Uzbek Islamic group. “This case is an example of how our youth can be radicalized by the propaganda and lies on the Internet,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Whisonant.
Angela Merkel Intervenes over Court Ban on Circumcision of Young Boys
posted on July 17, 2012Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, assured Germany’s Jewish and Muslim communities that, despite a recent court order banning the practice,”[c]ircumcision carried out in a responsible manner must be possible in this country without punishment.” Seibert stated that Merkel’s office is working to resolve the legal ramifications of the recent decision by a court in Cologne, which declared that circumcision inflicts bodily harm on young boys. In the meantime, Seibert sought to assure the public that, “For everyone in the government it is absolutely clear that we want to have Jewish and Muslim religious life in Germany.”
Responding to Andrew Sullivan’s Continuing “Cult” Campaign
posted on July 17, 2012Mormon American’s D.T. and Ryan Bell challenge Andrew Sullivan’s claim that Mormonism has “cultish qualities.” “It’s easy to draw up any ‘criteria’ to make a religion look cultish,” write Bell and Bell. “When calling Mormonism a cult, is Sullivan really just saying that it operates like hundreds of other religions, which do not typically privilege transparency and democracy over divine authority?”
Heterosexual Martyrs and Gay Saints: Did AIDS Coverage Clear the Way for LGBT Equality?
posted on July 17, 2012At Religion Dispatches, Diane Winston chronicles the shift in attitudes toward gay Americans by highlighting the media’s role in changing the public’s perception of AIDS. “At the outset of the crisis, mainstream news outlets had marginalized AIDS coverage,” but as gays responded in public and “heterosexual caregivers became involved, real life caught up to religious platitudes and many Christians reconsidered their position,” writes Winston.
Confessions of an Ex-Mormon
posted on July 17, 2012At The New Republic, Walter Kirn recounts his personal history with Mormonism. Kirn joined the LDS Church with his family as a young teenager, but left the faith by the time he was 17. Kirn writes that it is wrong to think Mitt Romney represents all things Mormon. “[Romney] no more stood for Mormonism than I did, but he was often presumed to stand for it by journalists who knew little about his faith.”