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By Peter Longerich
By Stanley Kutler
$9.29
$22
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — The pope came to the U.S. as a quiet but forceful critic of “an increasingly secular and materialistic culture.” Almost any American who paid attention to his sermon Thursday had to be uncomfortable because all of us are shaped by the very forces he was criticizing.
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A grim picture is emerging from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints compound in West Texas, where 416 children have been removed to state custody and 139 women have left. Court documents allege widespread sexual abuse of teenage girls who were married at puberty to much older men by the polygamist sect.
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Illinois state Rep. Monique Davis’ heated public exchange last Wednesday with atheist activist Rob Sherman over the allocation of $1 million in state funds to repair a church is still going on—fortunately for Sherman, perhaps not so much for Davis—on the Internet, at least.
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By Amy Goodman — It has been 40 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel.
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thepage.time.com
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Lost in the discussion of the Rev. Wright controversy and its impact on the Obama campaign is the fallout for the minister himself. Wright’s first public events since his sermons went YouTube, a revival in Tampa and a series of sermons in Houston, have been canceled. A third event, where he is supposed to be honored, has been downgraded to “pending.”
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Hillary Clinton says she would have left her church, were she in Barack Obama’s position, because “We have a choice when it comes to our pastors.”
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AP photo / Brian Kersey
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The Rev. Madison Shockley, who presides over a congregation of the same denomination as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, joins a panel of Truthdiggers to investigate the controversy surrounding Barack Obama’s church. How can a predominantly black church be described as separatist and hateful, Shockley asks, when it is part of an overwhelmingly white denomination?
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Let’s ask the hard question about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright: Is he as far outside the African-American mainstream as many of us would like to think?
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churchtimes.co.uk
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Following a heated debate, the British House of Lords approved an amendment that does away with the UK’s long-standing common law against blasphemy—a watershed moment that some believe was too long in coming.
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Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama honored the late, great Martin Luther King Jr. on Sunday with a couple of refreshingly fresh speeches. Be sure to give them a listen. There are some truly wonderful moments of rhetorical homage to one of the great orators of all time.
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philadelphiaweekly.com
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During his midnight Christmas mass at the Vatican on Tuesday, Pope Benedict XVI paid special attention to what he called the “ill-treated world” and our “selfish and reckless exploitation” of energy. He’s not just all talk: it turns out the Vatican bought carbon credits this holiday season to offset emissions. It’s just a little present to the world from the biggest little city in Italy.
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The one and only anti-war Republican presidential candidate didn’t raise his hand when asked who doesn’t believe in evolution, but it turns out he may have wanted to. In this clip, Paul responds to a question about the incident by saying that it was an “inappropriate question,” but that “I think it’s a theory—theory of evolution—and I don’t accept it.”
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motherjones.com
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The Huckabee campaign has refused to give the media much more than scraps of the candidate’s religious speeches, leaving his 12 years as a pastor relatively shrouded in mystery. We already know he doesn’t believe in evolution, thought at one time that AIDS patients should be quarantined and isn’t ashamed “to let you know that I believe Adam and Eve were real people,” so what is he hiding?
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AP photo / David J. Phillip
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Now that rival Republican presidential hopeful (and Baptist minister) Mike Huckabee is getting traction in Iowa polls, Mitt Romney has attempted to pull a JFK by giving a speech Thursday targeting voters concerned about his Mormonism. Romney pledged that church authorities wouldn’t influence his presidential decisions, while also declaring that he endeavors to “live by” his faith and be “true to” his beliefs.
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guardian.co.uk
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Amid the fracas over who can marry whom, professor and author Stephanie Coontz poses a provocative question in Monday’s New York Times that leads to some interesting history and shifts the focus of the debate: “Why do people—gay or straight—need the state’s permission to marry?”
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airamerica.com
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A Maryland court has ordered leaders of Kansas’ fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church to pay almost $11 million in damages to Albert Snyder, the father of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq. Snyder sued the controversial church after members picketed his son’s funeral in March 2006.
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By Will Durst — The creator will campaign for a third-party candidate if Rudy locks up the GOP nomination. How do we know this? Well, it seems God whispered in the ears of certain evangelical leaders.
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By Ellen Goodman — Warren Jeffs, a polygamist prophet, is on trial for aiding in the sexual assault of a 14-year-old girl he married off to her cousin. It’s a sad story featuring an abhorrent man, but something about the case just doesn’t feel right to Ellen Goodman.
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George F. Regas —
A leading Los Angeles religious figure blasts media irresponsibility at a memorial service for one of the Los Angeles Times’ top editors, Anthony Day.
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By Tom Engelhardt — There’s a lot of talk about religious fundamentalism these days, but how much do we really know about the brand of Christian fundamentalism that has developed in America since, and in response to, the Enlightenment? Author James Carroll holds forth on the subject in this interview with TomDispatch editor Tom Engelhardt.
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AP Photo / Julio Cortez
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After leaving the sanctuary of the Chicago church where she held off immigration authorities for a year, Mexican immigration activist Elvira Arellano was arrested and deported after speaking out at an immigrants’ rights demonstration in Los Angeles. Now in Tijuana, Arellano will continue her efforts to reunite with her American-born son and will keep fighting for families divided by immigration laws.
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AP Photo / Tony Gutierrez
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The family of Navy veteran Cecil Sinclair says it’s deeply insulted because a Dallas-area megachurch reneged on its offer to hold a memorial for the 46-year-old Gulf War serviceman just 24 hours before the service was to take place. The reason? Sinclair was gay—a fact that Sinclair’s sister insists High Point Church leaders already knew, despite their denials.
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AP Photo / Luca Bruno
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In a move that strikes some as proprietary ecclesiastical politics, the Vatican released a statement Tuesday claiming that the Catholic Church is the only Christian organization eligible to use the term church to describe itself.
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news.bbc.co.uk
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Sony Computer Entertainment is in hot water with the Church of England because of a popular video game that simulates a shootout in the Manchester Cathedral. Among other concerns, the church is appalled that Sony would “encourage people to have gun battles” in a city known for gun crime.
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lawrenkmills.mu.nu
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Actor John Travolta and other members of the Church of Scientology are steaming mad about a BBC program about their controversial religion that aired Sunday in Britain, claiming that presenter John Sweeney was biased, as evidenced by his angry outburst at a church member during filming.
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By E.J. Dionne, Jr. — Sen. Barack Obama’s standing ovation at Pastor Rick Warren’s church demonstrates why the Illinois senator is one of the hottest commodities in 2008 presidential politics.
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rockymountainnews.com
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In a letter read on Sunday to his former congregation, Ted Haggard admitted to sexual immorality and deception. Though Haggard initially denied having sex with a former male escort, the oversight board charged with investigating the matter decided that allowing a gay man to massage him was reason enough for the pastor’s dismissal. (h/t: Huffington Post)
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Courtesy All Saints Church
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By Rev. Ed Bacon — All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., is facing an IRS investigation for its politically themed sermons dating back to 2004. Here, Truthdig reproduces the defiant sermon that its rector, the Rev. Ed Bacon, delivered this past Sunday, in which he voices strong opposition to the U.S. government’s perceived position that churches should stay silent in the face of the world’s injustices.
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timesunion.com
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The pope’s recent comments signal a divergence from the religious outreach of his predecessor, John Paul II, who was the first pope to enter a mosque. Benedict XVI has since apologized for his speech, which quoted a Byzantine emperor who said the prophet Muhammad had brought only “evil and inhuman” things to the world.
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palmbeachpost.com
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The Katherine Harris campaign tried on Saturday to clarify the candidate’s latest ride on the crazy train, when she said that separation of church and state is “a lie we have been told” and that “God is the one who chooses our rulers.” It’s an interesting idea coming from Harris, who worked so hard in the 2000 election to disenfranchise voters on Bush’s behalf. (h/t: Americablog)
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From the BBC
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Katherine Harris, villain of the 2004 Florida recount saga and a congresswoman running for U.S. Senate, recently dismissed to an interviewer the idea that religion should stay out of politics, saying, “God is the one who chooses our rulers.”
So was it God or was it Katherine Harris who fraudulently threw all those eligible black citizens off the voting rolls in 2004? Hey, if she wants to run with the “omnipotent God” logic, she can’t have it both ways….
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The media has grossly underreported the extent to which Bush’s Christian fundamentalism informs his policies on Israel, Iraq, stem cells and abortion, argues a former Newsday and Knight Ridder White House correspondent.
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A Minnesota megachurch leader says “the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a ‘Christian nation’ and stop glorifying American military campaigns.”
Amen.
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From TPM Muckraker
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The former Christian Coalition leader and current candidate for Lt. Gov. of Georgia reportedly concocted a scheme with lobbyist Jack Abramoff to collect the life insurance payouts of African-Americans in lieu of charging them fees for the duo’s lobbying and consulting services. (Read the whole story in GQ.)
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From Salon.com
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Salon reviews a thoughtful new book that examines the mental anguish suffered by homosexual Christians who enter residential programs to battle their sexual desires. (Reg. req’d.)
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The request, which echoes something the Bush-Cheney ticket did in the 2004 race, has been met with protests from across the spectrum.
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The religious right demands that we focus on Jesus this holiday season. Okay, but what do we really know about him? We turn to a religious scholar to find out. The Rev. Madison Shockley is a minister of the United Church of Christ in Carlsbad, Calif. and a regular commentator on religion, race, politics and popular culture.
Posted on Jan 23, 2006
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In negotiating with a second wave of sexual abuse victims, the Catholic Church has “reverted to the bare-knuckles tactics it had long used to silence or marginalize them,” critics tell the New York Times, “largely because public attention to the scandals had abated.” Read the story.
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