Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Disney Kin Joins BDS Call
posted on July 17, 2012Abigail Disney, grandniece of Walt Disney, has called for the boycott of the popular skincare brand, Ahava, reports Tablet’s Liel Leibovitz. According to Disney’s statement, Ahava’s factory is located in “the Occupied shores of the Dead Sea,” an area that contains controversial Israeli settlements. Disney, who is the principal investor in Shamrock Holdings Inc., which owns a significant percentage of Ahava, has stated, “I cannot in good conscience profit from what is technically the ‘plunder’ or ‘pillage’ of occupied natural resources and the company’s situating its factory in an Israeli settlement in the Occupied West Bank.”
Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?
posted on July 17, 2012The New York Times’ Ross Douthat links the liberalization of American mainline churches with their continued decline in membership. Douthat cites the Episcopal Church as the prime example of this phenomenon, noting that the church is “friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.” Yet Douthat argues that the Episcopal Church offers nothing “you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism.”
Paterno and the Curse of Self-Righteousness
posted on July 17, 2012In light of former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s report, which found that the late Joe Paterno allowed child abuse by Penn State assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, to go unreported, Commentary’s Jonathan S. Tobin argues that Paterno “seemed to have believed that preserving [his] legacy was more important than putting an end to the abuse being committed by his friend and colleague.” Highlighting the Watergate break-in and the Monica Lewinsky affair, Tobin notes that the same desire to preserve legacies also led to presidential cover-ups and scandals. “Paterno should stand as a warning to anyone in a position of authority that their self-image as good guys can never justify cutting moral corners,” Tobin writes.
U.S. Confidence in Organized Religion at Low Point
posted on July 16, 2012A New Gallup poll finds that “44 percent of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in ‘the church or organized religion,'” a historic low point, Lynda Saad notes for Gallup. According to Saad, religion was the highest ranked organization through 1985, beating out the military and the Supreme Court. But highly publicized sex scandals among televangelists in the 1980s, and most recently, the clergy sex abuse in the Catholic church, has led to a decrease in Americans’ confidence in religion.
Contraceptive Evangelicals?
posted on July 16, 2012At The American Spectator, Mark Tooley chronicles what he calls “the leftward drift” of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). For Tooley, the biggest example of this change is highlighted in the recent disclosure that the NEA has been receiving funds from “the pro-choice Hewlett Foundation via the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy.” “In some ways,” Tooley writes, “NAE now resembles the group it was founded partly to counteract, the National Council of Churches. No longer striving to speak for evangelicals, NAE now, like the NCC, tries to speak prophetically to its church members.”
Read at The American Spectator
Dalai Lama Should Condemn Tibetan Self-immolations
posted on July 16, 2012At CNN, Stephen Prothero argues that the Dalai Lama should speak out against the “epidemic of self-immolations” in Tibet. So far the Dalai Lama has refused to take a stand on the spate of self-immolations among Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in their homeland; instead the Dalai Dama has expressed his desire to “remain neutral” on the affair. “I know it is impolitic to criticize the Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who is revered as a bodhisattva by many Buddhists,” writes Prothero. “But he deserves criticism in this case … Why not use his vast storehouse of moral and spiritual capital to denounce this ritual of human sacrifice?”
Mormon Church Lashes Back at Magazine over Portrayal of Prophet and Profits
posted on July 16, 2012Religion News Service’s Daniel Burke writes about the response from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) to the recent controversial Bloomberg Business week cover. The cover, which accompanies a lengthy article detailing the LDS Church’s financial holdings, satirizes the moment Mormons believe John the Baptist bestowed the priesthood on Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith. LDS Church spokesman, Michael Purdy, stated that, “Sadly, the cover is a reflection of the bias and speculative nature of the article itself.”
Freedom of Worship’s Assault on Freedom of Religion
posted on July 16, 2012At First Things, Welsey J. Smith writes that among the biggest assaults on “freedom of religion” today comes from the “hyper-restricted” concept of “freedom of worship.” Smith explains the difference between the two concepts this way: “Under freedom of worship, the Catholic and Orthodox churches both remain perfectly free to teach that the Eucharist bread and wine transform into the body and blood of Christ … But outside worship contexts, the state may compel the faithful to violate their faiths by acting in accord with secular morality rather than consistently with their dogmatic precepts.”
The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama
posted on July 16, 2012At Esquire, Tom Junod pens an open letter to the president, criticizing Obama’s increased reliance on drones to conduct the U.S.’ anti-terrorism efforts. “You are a historic figure, Mr. President,” writes Junod. “You are not only the first African-American president; you are the first … to make the killing of targeted individuals the focus of our military operations, of our intelligence, of our national-security strategy, and, some argue, of our foreign policy.”
Boston Church Prays for Pastor Abducted in Egypt
posted on July 16, 2012Bizuayehu Tesfaye reports for the Associated Press that a Boston pentecostal preacher has been kidnapped in Egypt. Jirmy Abu-Mashu abducted the “Rev. Michel Louis and two others off a bus on a road between Cairo and Mount Sinai on Friday,” writes Tesfaye, “and is demanding police release his uncle from prison. He said his uncle was jailed after refusing to pay a bribe to police.”