HuffPost Religion Round-Up: August 14-21

It has been a busy week at HuffPost Religion. Two items hot off the presses from Jaweed Kaleem, our wonderful religion reporter.

First, church attendance among less educated white Americans is declining. This news is upsetting when coupled with the renewed fears of the double dip recession. It means that those people who might be more affected by economic troubles are left even more on the margins without the church community that should be able to offer them support in spiritual and material ways.

The second news flash is that Americans are losing confidence in religious leaders. Well, can you blame them? (And that is coming from a pastor!) When religious leaders focus more on relevant lessons of religious wisdom for living our collective and personal lives, and less on anti-science nonsense, judgement and hypocrisy then maybe our approval ratings will go back up.

Speaking of relevant -- we continue our series ON Scripture with great writing over the last couple of weeks by Barbara Kay Lundblad on Teaching Jesus and Eric Barreto on Faith in the Past, Present and Future. We also had some intelligent reflections on the Bible including the Bible As Library Not Book, on Mary, Mother of Jesus, the First Christians and on Adam and Eve. I am so thankful to those who are willing to go beyond literalism to delve deep into the text and divine what truths are there for us.

This week we observed the 20th anniversary of the violence of Crown Heights with a poignant piece on Re-framing the Religious and Racial Narrative of that horrific event by Henry Goldschmidt, for which he deserves this week's Piece of the Week. The fact that more progress has not been made prompted Russell Simmons to demand that Churches, Mosques and Synagogues TheirJob to promote peace and respect among all races and religion -- Preach!

We have also been delighted to have reports from the World Youth Day event in Madrid with an on-the-ground Jesuit reporter Michael Rossman, S.J., who told us of the many wonderful small moments that happen at such a big event. We hope that when people get back home they aren't too surprised by the Roman Catholic Mass that is about to undergo some big changes.

Ramadan continues with some beautiful reflections by Imam Khalid Latif. We especially enjoyed his reflection on how Muslims treat converts, which made us reflect on how all our traditions can do better at making recent arrivals feeling truly loved and welcomed.

Kari Ansari also reminded us that lessons in Ramadan can come from some unexpected places -- children. And while we love that sentiment, the kiddie preaching video phenom made us slightly creeped-out, and reminded us of those kiddie pageants -- maybe kids can just be kids and not mini-adults.

While some Jews are finding love in a cave in Jerusalem (stalagmites=romantic), other Orthodox gays and lesbians are being matchmade to one another by an Orthodox rabbi with a mission, which prompted Rabbi Andrea Meyer to go all Brokeback Mountain on the situation.

Finally, we launched our 10 Women Religious Leaders list. The 10 are only the beginning and many HuffPost Religion users had their own picks which made us feel even better. We hope that women continue expand their leadership roles in both the religious and civic world -- we desperately need good leadership in a time such as this one.

May you all be blessed as you bless others this week.

Peace, Peace, Peace!

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush
Senior Religion Editor

 

 

 

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Comments

[amanimal]

07:42 PM on 08/21/2011

Paul,

I became aware of a couple of disturbing things this last week.

First, of the beating death of Lydia Schatz at the hands of her parents, Kevin and Elizabeth, who were apparently adherents of the disciplinary practices espoused by Michael and Debi Pearl in their book 'To Train Up A Child'.

Second, there are 30 nations in the world where corporal punishment is prohibited in the home, at school, the penal system, and alternate care settings. The United States is NOT one of these 30 nations. In fact, sadly enough, corporal punishment is widely supported.

http://www.endcorporalpunishment.org/

Brad Hirschfield, a regular contributor to HP, has written a piece entitled 'Beating children in the name of God'. I hope you will see your way to run it as the Featured Blog Post soon with the links intact.

'Beating children in the name of God'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/for-gods-sake/post/beating-children-in-the-name-of-god/2011/08/18/gIQAqDFGOJ_blog.html

It's said that children 'learn what they live' - maybe one way towards a more peaceful world should be working to eliminate all physical violence committed against children.

Thank you for your consideration.

[Jeffery Grant]

04:35 PM on 08/21/2011

Some great articles this week. I'm fairly new to Huffington and have been surprised by the quality and content of many of the post. It's nice to see some articles critique fundamentalist Christianity which is slowly crumbling onto itself. Good work you all!

[earlyautumn]

02:03 PM on 08/21/2011

Why do pastors and priests and rabbis not come out and state emphatically that being a good Christian or a good Jew is inconsistent with what is going on in the Republican Party? How can one claim to be a Christian or Jew -- considering the Old and New Testament teaching regarding the rich and the poor -- and still support the GOP? Is their church/synagogue membership nothing but window dressing?

[3rdCitizen]

12:15 PM on 08/21/2011

I attend an Episcopal church in Manhattan. This morning, at the start of announcements, the priest led a round of applause for the church's former deacon, who retired at the end of last year, for his marriage yesterday to his partner of 57 years. After the service, the two elderly men were surrounded by well-wishers & appeared deeply moved.
It certainly made my day!
So, "religious experiences" need have nothing to do with ignorance or intolerance.