Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Saint Sydney
posted on July 12, 2012At The American Conservative, R.J. Stove profiles Sydney Smith, an early 19th century Anglican preacher and beloved political provocateur. Smith’s magazine, the Edinburgh Review, was so well respected in England that it was even “read by multitudes who abhorred his politics,” writes Stove. “A cause had only to be both sensible and apparently unwinnable for Smith to champion it,” which, according to Stove, included Smith’s defense of the rights of English Catholics to practice their religion and to hold public office.
Read at The American Conservative
Timbuktu, Lost City
posted on July 12, 2012At NPR, Peter Chilson writes about the tumultuous history of Timbuktu, Mali. In the last few weeks, the Islamist rebel group, Ansar Dine, began methodically “destroying ancient tombs and mosques,” which were built to honor Sufi saints, because Ansar Dine believes that venerating saints is un-Islamic, reports Chilson. “And yet,” writes Chilson, “across the spread of 1,000 years of history, this is nothing new in Timbuktu, which has been occupied and sacked by numerous armies, from the Tuaregs to the Songhai to the Arabs, from the Moors to the French.”
Dalai Lama Speaks of Dilemma on Spreading Self-Immolations
posted on July 12, 2012The Dalai Lama declared that “it is best for him ‘to remain neutral’ on the issue of more than 40 Tibetans setting themselves on fire in the Tibetan areas of China over the past year,” reports The Hindu’s Ananth Krishnan. The Tibetans have performed the symbolically charged act of self-immolation to protest Chinese rule in their homeland. Despite the Dalai Lama’s stated neutrality, Krishnan writes that the Dalai Lama “called on the Chinese government to … ‘not pretend that nothing is wrong’ with its policies” in Tibet.
President as Politician and Priest
posted on July 12, 2012At Real Clear Religion, Ashley McGuire, editor-in-chief of Altcatholicah, warns, “Americans are ever wary of the way our President is attempting to reshape religion in this country.” McGuire insists that, as it is currently written, the HHS contraception mandate would force religious employers “to include contraception, sterilization, and abortion-causing drugs in their healthcare plans, regardless of conscientious objection.” McGuire writes that Obama “and his bureaucrats are willing to tell Americans what is and is not religious activity.”
In Sleepy Minnesota Suburbs, Church Ladies Launch Gay Marriage Crusade
posted on July 12, 2012As a symbol of protest against a proposed state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, a group of “church ladies” have begun flying rainbow flags at their homes in some of Minnesota’s wealthiest suburbs, reports Talya Minsberg for The Atlantic. It isn’t a surprise that the amendment is unpopular in the state’s famously progressive “Twin Cities” of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Yet according to Minsberg, the proliferation of the rainbow flags in normally conservative areas, like Eden Praire and Minnetonka, has changed the political dynamics of the state; the debate over gay marriage has “been stripped of notions about left and right, suburban and city-dweller.”
Bible Museum Planned for Washington, D.C.
posted on July 12, 2012“A large-scale Bible museum will open in Washington, D.C., within four years,” reports Adelle M. Banks for Religion News Service. Funded by the wealthy Green family of Oklahoma, the museum will include a full-scale replica of “the chamber of London’s Westminster Abbey where the King James Version of the Bible was written,” writes Banks. While the museum’s founders state that their aim is not to necessarily to proselytize, Steven Green, a Southern Baptist and president of the arts and crafts chain, Hobby Lobby, says, “When we present the evidence, I think it’s going to be compelling for somebody to say, ‘Wow, this is a compelling book. I might want to consider what it has to say.’”
Spreading the Faith where Faith Itself Is Suspect
posted on July 12, 2012The New York Time’s Andrew Jacobs chronicles the struggle between the Catholic Church and the Chinese government over control of the church’s leadership in China. According to Jacobs, China, an officially atheist state, and the Vatican are engaging “in an increasingly combative struggle over the appointment of bishops.” “We have to beg the government to do anything,” says Rev. Peter Liu Yongbin, a Chinese Catholic priest.
Caste First, Christ Second, for Some Indian Christians
posted on July 11, 2012At Religion Dispatches, Megan Sweas reports on the interplay of caste and Christianity in India. She writes that “church leaders have had to admit that Christianity in India is tainted by caste,” as social position often trumps faith. As Father G. Cosmon Arokiaraj says, “Attitudes in the church won’t change until the government helps raise Dalit Christians’ social standing through reservation,” a system Sweas likens to affirmative action for lower castes.
How the Mormons Make Money
posted on July 11, 2012Yesterday Bloomberg Businessweek released reporter Caroline Winter’s in-depth article on the financial dealings and wealth of the LDS Church, a faith which “offers little financial transparency.” As Winter notes in the high-profile report, “It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mormonism, an indigenous American religion, would also adopt the country’s secular faith in money.” She continues, “What is remarkable is how varied the church’s business interests are—and, at a time when a former Mormon bishop is about to receive the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, that so little is known about the church’s financial interests.”
Read at Bloomberg Businessweek
Obama Administration Raps Israeli Report on Legality of Settlements
posted on July 11, 2012According to JTA, the “Obama administration criticized an Israeli panel finding that West Bank settlements are legal under international law.” The Israel report called for the legalization of outposts built on Palestinian land by Israeli settlers. J Street, a U.S. Jewish advocacy group, issued a statement urging Israelis “to reject the committee’s recommendations and to choose instead a path that leads to two states, thereby securing both Israel’s Jewish and democratic future.”
Read at Jewish Telegraph Agency