July 23, 2007 | 2:13 pm

Cardinal Mahony as the serpent and the mayor as Adam

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Follow me on

I’m been writing of late about Cardinal Roger Mahony and the LA Archdiocese’s massive settlement with 508 alleged victims of clergy sex abuse and about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s philandering ways.

Well, the LA Daily News put the two together in this cover for the Sunday Viewpoint section. That’s Mahony as the serpent and the mayor chasing his adulterous lover Mirthala Salinas through the “Garden of Telemundo.” You obviously get the reference.

(Thanks, LAObserved)

July 23, 2007 | 2:01 pm

‘Stupidest fatwas’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Last month, I told you about the breast-feeding fatwa (unmarried men and women could be together at work if the woman breast-fed her male colleagues five times, to establish family ties) and the urine fatwa (drinking the prophet’s pee was a blessing).

It looks like Foreign Policy was inspired—not by me, but the lunacy of the breast-feeding fatwa—and they published a short list of ‘The World’s Stupidest Fatwas.’ The breast-feeder made it on the list of five dumb fatwas. Also making an appearance were:

• The order on Salman Rushdie’s life

• The ruling by the former dean of Islamic law at al-Azhar University in Cairo that “being completely naked during the act of coitus annuls the marriage”

• The Pokemon fatwa, because, obviously, Pokemon is stupid, evil and promotes “international Zionism”

• The polio fatwa that forbade Pakistani children this year from receiving the vaccine because the anti-Western clerics said it was a conspiracy to make Muslims sterile

These are the same great jurists who have given us such fatwas as “kill the Jews and the Crusaders.” Here’s my question, it’s one I’ve asked before to Islamic reformer Khaled Abou El Fadl at UCLA Law School: Why does anybody listen to these guys?

(Hat-tip: Bible Belt Blog)

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July 23, 2007 | 11:47 am

The Harry Potter gospel

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

An Amazon.com search for “gospel according to” nets over 11,000 hits. You can read “The Gospel According to Superman,” “The Gospel According to the Simpsons” or, shockingly, “The Gospel According to Jesus.” Personally, I prefer the Gospel of Mark; it’s a quick read.

And today, Christianity Today posted a story titled “The Gospel According to Harry Potter,” not to be confused with a book by the same name. (WARNING: This link is filled with spoilers.) Here’s the opening:

I first met Harry Potter when my grandmother was dying.

On New Years Day 1999, she had a massive stroke from which she would never recover. Not wanting her to die alone, we took turns sitting by her bedside, round the clock. The night I spent with her, I brought along my Bible, the biggest cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee I could find, and a new novel, picked up from the bookstore on the way to the hospital: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Both the Bible and the “Boy Who Lived” proved good company during the watches of the night. Both pointed the way to hope in the face of death.

And there was at least one echo from the Scriptures in the Sorcerer’s Stone: Lord Voldemort, the Hitleresque dark wizard in J.K. Rowling’s fictional works, was defeated not by power but by love—by a young mother who sacrificed her life to save her young son. In Rowling’s world, that kind of love is stronger than any magic. It can even conquer death. By the time Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows opens, however, it seems that death finally has the upper hand.

We discussed here last week whether Harry Potter was a Christian. Bob Smietana writes that after 3,365 soul-less pages, “Christ begins to whisper in The Deathly Hallows.” I’ll stop there so I don’t spoil any plot twists. If you’ve already finished the book—I have not yet begun, but my wife is almost there—let me know if you agree.

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July 23, 2007 | 6:29 am

Turkey’s Islamic (r)evolution

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Well, kids can dream, can’t they? I’d say global tensions rose ever so slightly yesterday when Turkey’s Islamic party easily took national elections. Turkey’s geopolitical importance is the reason the U.S. refuses to call the slaughtering of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Turks a genocide. But will it remain a friend?

The vote could have far-reaching consequences for Turkey’s engagement with the West, including its drive to become the first Muslim-dominated country to join the European Union. Though secularist parties have been cool to that idea, the AKP has vowed to press ahead with the bid despite early rebuffs.

“With this vote, Turkey said no to insularity, no to closing in on itself,” said Cengiz Candar, a prominent political columnist.

The moderate and officially secular country, which is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is viewed as a strategic bridge to a Muslim world increasingly mistrustful of the West, particularly the United States. Successive Turkish governments have maintained close ties with Muslim neighbors even while pursuing divergent policies, such as a cordial relationship with Israel.

The election results were a crushing defeat for Turkey’s secular-minded main opposition party, which got about 20% of the vote. Still, because of rules governing the allocation of parliamentary seats, the opposition will have some ability to stymie AKP initiatives, including the party’s drive to have one of its own elected president — the same battle that triggered these early elections.

The AKP’s resounding victory could fuel tensions with Turkey’s powerful military, which considers itself the guardian of the secular system put in place 84 years ago by the country’s founder, Kemal Ataturk.

That was some of the concern this past spring, and a reason the election was called early Sunday. This, of course, could be a beautiful moment when a country ruled by Muslim leaders and possibly laws shows that Islam and democracy can coexist. Or ...

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July 23, 2007 | 6:05 am

It’s official: the LA Times hates Israel

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That’s definitely the feeling out here.

I wrote two weeks ago about how I found it surprising that the LA Times had given a platform to a Hamas leader on its op-ed page. Then in Friday’s Jewish Journal, Tamar Sternthal complained about the same op-ed, asking why the Times neglected to mention that Mousa Abu Marzook had been indicted in 2004 in the U.S. on racketeering and money-laundering charges.

And in yesterday’s Opinion section of the Times, rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center said it was “unconscionable” that the Times had given a soapbox to Hamas.

Memo to Al Qaeda’s Ayman Zawahiri: Forget the mule pack; give your video cam a rest. Our nation’s leading media outlets are making an offer you can’t refuse: If you can keep it to 1,250 words, the next time you want to communicate directly to the American people, the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and New York Times want your byline.

Inconceivable? Consider Hamas’ summer hot streak. Not only has it driven Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas out of Gaza, threatened Israeli civilians and bombarded fellow Palestinians, but it has scored the ultimate media trifecta. First, the New York Times and the Washington Post simultaneously ran Op-Ed articles by Ahmed Yousef, a senior leader of Hamas who defended his group’s bloody putsch in Gaza. Now, the Los Angeles Times has opened its Op-Ed page to Hamas political bureau deputy Mousa Abu Marzook for his insidious take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

(Cartoon: CoxandForkum)

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July 22, 2007 | 6:49 pm

Don’t touch that dial—you’ll miss Jesus

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Did you hear Jesus Christ on the radio this morning. I swear, on 640 KFI, “morrrrrrrre stimulating talk radio,” as they say.

Now, of course, this voice wasn’t that Jesus. It was KFI Jesus—also known as Neil Saavedra, who is not the redeemer of man but pretends to speak as him every Sunday from 6 a.m to 9. Here’s part of the profile I wrote about Saavedra last December.

Listeners heed his wisdom; some consider it divinely inspired.

“Oh, Jesus?” Pete Moyes, 54, of Murrieta said after waiting on hold for about an hour. “Question - I really appreciate you taking my call - how can I be assured of my salvation?”

“OK, what’s your concern?” KFI Jesus asked.

“Well, people that know me, and I’ve known you for 30 some-odd years and I know that you are going to perfect whatever work I start, but I would think that after 30 years, I would get rid of some of these character defects, things that I do that I know I have to apologize for,” Moyes said. “Why is my brain still thinking that way?”

“Well,” KFI Jesus responded, “Scripture says it via (the Apostle) Paul very well: `The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.’ ... The benefit is that it’s paid for: It’s taken care of by the blood of the cross. ... You hit it on the head when you called, and that is that I will finish the work and the perfection I started in you. That comes from me and not you.”

I was curious then about what people thought of Saavedra’s shtick. But I didn’t have a blog, so I’ve resurrected this story to ask you the question: Is this blasphemous?

(Image: Podsafe)

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July 22, 2007 | 10:18 am

Israeli cable wants to yank Christian station

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Israel’s Hot Cable TV is planning on pulling a Christian station that runs 15-minute infomercials that try to reach Jews with the message of Jesus, causing, of course, an international brouhaha. Jerusalem city councilwoman Mina Fenton, an anti-missionary activist, told the Jerusalem Post:

“The State of Israel must safeguard its Jewish existence which means preventing any non-Jewish authority that plans to wipe out the Jewish Nation spiritually from operating in the Jewish State.”

This is similar logic to why Jewish newspapers don’t run ads from Jews for Jesus or, I can only imagine, why Christianity Today wouldn’t publish a Muslim missionary’s call to Islam. What’s wrong with it?

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July 20, 2007 | 6:40 pm

‘Keeping those Muslims out of our country’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This is why Muslims outside the U.S. think the war on terror is a war on Islam. This is why Muslim leaders complain of an Islamophobic culture in America. This is—regardless of the reality that some young American Muslims believe their faith justifies suicide bombings—abject religious discrimination.

This ... is what I heard on NPR while driving home: David Greene asking an average Republican in Council Bluffs, Iowa about the war in Iraq:

“I am so proud of the men and women who fight for us. I am so proud of the ones who have died for us because they are the ones keeping us free and the ones keeping those Muslims out of our country.”

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July 20, 2007 | 6:18 pm

Cheney president for a day *

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

You may have noticed: I’m not a George Bush fan. I may be a Republican, but I don’t agree with 68 percent of the Party that think he’s doing swell or with Republican Jews who think his foreign policy is good for Israel.

But there is one thing I know that would be much worse than President Bush. And that is President Cheney.

Tomorrow, when Bush undergoes a colonoscopy, Cheney will assume the role of chief executive and commander in chief. Considering his assertions of executive power and his position on torture, I ask that we offer this prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven ... deliver us from evil.”

* Updated: Recommendations on National Review Online for what Cheney should spend his presidency doing. No. 1 the list: Bomb Iran.

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July 20, 2007 | 5:21 pm

Rabbi’s existence causes uproar in Egypt

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Reuven Firestone is one of the most respected voices on Islam and its relationship to Judaism. But a recent trip to Ain Shams University in Cairo, at which he delivered a paper on “Problematic of the Chosen in Monotheistic Religions,” ended badly when participating Egyptian professors learned he was a rabbi.

Mohamed El-Hawwari, head of the university’s Centre for the Study of Contemporary Civilisations, stood up for his ‘round-the-world colleague.

Interviewed by Al-Ahram Weekly, El-Hawwari stressed that Firestone, while entitled to call himself a “rabbi”, does not work in the religious field. “He is an American academic professor and it was in this capacity that he was invited to deliver his lecture.”

In a statement issued once the row had become public, El-Hawwari described Firestone as a professor of Jewish history at Hebro Union College, California, and the author of many books on both Jewish and Islamic history.

“I have known the guy for more than 20 years. He has never attacked Islam, which he respects and appreciates,” said El-Hawwari. “His lecture was based on texts derived from the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Talmud.

“When I invited Firestone to offer his lecture I did not expect him to utter the two testimonies of Islam and announce that he had become a Muslim. It’s natural for him to adopt religious concepts different from our own,” said El-Hawwari, commenting on Firestone’s reference to Isaac.

  “Our main problem is that we still cannot accept the other. Whoever differs with us becomes our enemy,” El-Hawwari continued.

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July 20, 2007 | 1:31 pm

Aliyah to New Orleans

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I bet there was a time when people would say, “You couldn’t pay me enough to move to California.” Actually, New Yorkers still say it. But now the Jewish community of New Orleans, down about 30 percent, to 7,000, since Hurricane Katrina, has cribbed one from Israel’s playbook and is offering money to members of the Tribe who want to make aliyah to the Crescent City.

“DO you have a pioneering spirit?” read the recent ad in the Jewish Week newspaper of New York. “Are you searching for a meaningful community where YOU can make a difference?”

To generations of American Jews, the pitch had a familiar ring. But this was not an invitation to settle the Promised Land. It was a call to repopulate New Orleans, a city known less for its Jewish culture than for its shellfish, sin and pre-Lenten carnival. ...

So far, Jewish leaders acknowledge that they have attracted only a few newcomers, such as Hal Karp, a former magazine writer from Dallas who is moving here to teach in the public schools.

Karp, 43, said he was “ready to fix the … world down there.” After some financial problems, however, he almost bailed out on his move — until he received an e-mail from the Jewish Federation. In addition to the money, they offered to pair him with a Jewish “host family” who would help him get to know the city.

“It was really like someone sending you a life raft,” he said. “It was like they were saying, ‘We need Jews, and if you will come, we’ll welcome you.’ “

Ynetnews reported that money for the program included a $100,000 grant from The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, but the Fed’s spokeswoman said that wasn’t true.

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July 20, 2007 | 8:53 am

Jesus the social philosopher

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

One would imagine that two millennia would provide ample occasion for exhaustive study of Jesus of Nazareth, and yet somehow every generation seems to find some new way to think about him. Our own age is no exception. For more than a century now, believers and skeptics alike have tried to strip theology from biography, to rediscover the man, Jesus, who lived before the faith, Christianity.

At its best, this modern approach to Jesus combines nuanced interpretation with thought-provoking argument. At its worst, it pretends to discern, say, what Jesus might consider the optimal rate of taxation or how he might direct American policy in the Middle East. Happily, Tod Lindberg’s “The Political Teachings of Jesus” belongs among the smart, sophisticated writings on the topic. Mr. Lindberg does not study Jesus’ political teachings with an eye toward public policy or partisan advantage. His interest, in fact, inclines to social philosophy. He treats Jesus as a profound thinker, a man with great insight into the enduring question of how we may best live together.

Stop. That’s what I did at this point in the Wall Street Journal book review. I stopped and thought, Haven’t I heard this before? Actually, I hear this all the time. “Jesus was a great teacher;” “he was a charismatic rabbi;” “he was a rebel.” There is some truth to these descriptors, but they are ridiculous to use unless—and this is a big unless, because most often I hear these statements from non-Christians—you believe Jesus was who he said he was. Because, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, Jesus was either “lord, lunatic or liar.”

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