March 17, 2011 | 11:22 am

Minnesota lawmaker wants invocations to be non-denominational

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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It’s pretty well-settled law in California that invocations used to open government meetings must be non-denominational. That doesn’t mean city councils follow the law, but that’s the law.

That question may be a bit less answered in Minnesota, where a Jewish legislator is asking the state Senate leaders to only allow non-denominational prayers. The AP reports:

Terri Bonoff, a Jewish Democrat from Minnetonka, a Minneapolis suburb, said: “We honor God in public and our political discourse, and that’s proper. But in doing a nondenominational prayer, we are honoring him without violating the separation of church and state.” Amy Koch, the Republican Senate majority leader, in rejecting the requirement, said the Senate invited leaders from numerous traditions to pray. “I’m not going to get into the process of sort of editing prayer,” she said

It’s not really a matter of editing but of having guidelines that ministers are told to follow.

March 17, 2011 | 10:57 am

Let the madness begin

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

March Madness is like religion, and because those First Four games don’t actually count, worship officially began this morning. Looking forward to a few weeks of hearing Gus Johnson preach; maybe an unforgettable game like the one above—“Heartbreak City!!!”

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March 16, 2011 | 11:45 am

Should ‘Irvine 11’ be prosecuted for disrupting Israel ambassador?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The case of the “Irvine 11” has been getting a lot more attention in the past month, as UC Irvine faculty have protested their prosecution and attorneys for the Muslim students moved to have the DA on the case removed.

As a refresher, these students were arrested for disrupting a speech at UCI by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. UCI is home to some of the ugliest anti-Israel rhetoric on American college campuses, and the Irvine 11’s behavior at Oren’s speech was not new.

And I supported the university suspending the Muslim Student Union after the Oren outburst. As I said when groups condemned the suspension:

The MSU has a long, long, long history of incendiary behavior, and for years the university and community have wrestled with how to make students of all beliefs and worldviews feel comfortable on campus.

UCI has cut the group a lot of slack. But this time—as opposed to when MSU members exploited Anne Frank during Palestinian Awareness Week, or all the times they brought Amir Abdel Malik Ali to campus, or when they orchestrated a Daniel Pipes walkout and one of the protesters proclaimed “Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth”—they crossed the line. They violated a code of conduct that all students agree to, and they aren’t being banned. Their organization has just been suspended for a year. It happens to fraternities all the time.

I’m more undecided, however, when it comes to the criminal conspiracy charges that have been brought against the Irvine 11.

Not surprisingly, Orange County Islamic leaders are urging the DA to drop the misdemeanor charges that the students—eight from UCI and three from UC Riverside—conspired to disrupt Oren’s speech. The LA Times reports:

The students “are passionate; they are caring and deeply believe in social justice,” said Arif Shaikh, who moderated a Saturday night panel at the Islamic Institute of Orange County, where religious leaders and political activists called on Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas to drop the charges.

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“Protests like this happen all around the country,” said Reem Salahi, a Pasadena lawyer representing the 11 men who at the time ranged in age from 19 to 23. “The O.C. district attorney has engaged in a witch hunt … with its highly selective and unwarranted criminal charges.”

The students have won support from UCI faculty, free-speech advocates, Muslim leaders and a liberal Jewish group. But other Jewish organizations, including the prominent Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, have denounced the students’ actions, saying they infringed on the rights of those who came to hear Oren speak.

The LAT doesn’t address it, but the statement from Shaikh presumes that there was something righteous about what these students were protesting, which in turn presumes things about the state of Israel. There are arguments both ways, of course, but for some reason the reporter felt it appropriate to just take as gospel the Israel-is-bad perspective.

As for the charges, like I said, I’m on the fence. Anyone compelled to nudge me?

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March 15, 2011 | 5:47 pm

MSNBC asks Rob Bell about ‘theological firestorm’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Speaking of Rob Bell, MSNBC had this interview with the pastor and author of “Love Wins.” It’s pretty interesting. The interviewer opens by asking an absurd diametric about suffering in Japan:

“Which of these is true: Either God is all powerful but he doesn’t care about the people of Japan and therefore they are suffering; or he does care about the people of Japan but he’s not all powerful? Which one is it?”

Um ... there are a few other options. After that, the interview improves.

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March 15, 2011 | 2:03 pm

Rob Bell: heretic or marketing genius?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve been trying to keep up on all the Rob Bell drama, but it’s proven more voluminous than anyone other than, say, the online editor of Christianity Today. Fortunately Sarah Pulliam Bailey is more than capable, and she has a good rundown here of all the Bell latest.

In case you missed it, Bell, the head of Mars Hill Church and author of “Velvet Elvis,” a book I couldn’t get 10 pages into, has a new book out today. It’s called “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived,” and it’s roiled a lot of feathers. As I mentioned last week:

The gist of the book is that, according to the publisher, “a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering.”

That’s a pretty bold statement for a Christian minister. Especially one of Bell’s rockstar evangelical status. And, as you could imagine, it hasn’t one over well.

Among those who have denounced the theology behind Bell’s book are Justin Taylor, whose post on The Gospel Coalition suggested Bell is a universalist and the type of false teacher that the Bible warns about. Taylor wrote that in late February, before he had read Bell’s entire book (though the promotional video Bell released left little mystery). USA Today’s Cathy Lynn Grossman checked in with Taylor to see what he thought after having read the whole book:

“Whether you like it or not, the Bible presents true teaching and warns against false teachers, even those who look like great people,” says Taylor, digging at Bell’s highly stylized videos circulating online and among churches coast to coast.”

But Richard Mouw, president of the world’s largest Protestant seminary, Fuller Theological Seminary based in Pasadena, Calif., calls Love Wins “a great book, well within the bounds of orthodox Christianity and passionate about Jesus.

The real hellacious fight, says Mouw, a friend of Bell, a Fuller graduate, is between “generous orthodoxy and stingy orthodoxy. There are stingy people who just want to consign many others to hell and only a few to heaven and take delight in the idea. But Rob Bell allows for a lot of mystery in how Jesus reaches people.”

It’s difficult to remember the last time a book about Christian theology had this kind of buzz before it hit bookshelves. So far, I’d say Rob Bell wins.

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March 15, 2011 | 1:08 pm

Churches entering showbiz

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly has a story about churches getting into showbiz. Sort of:

One is Friends Church here in Yorba Linda, a Quaker congregation with an evangelical megachurch worship style where members are finishing production on a film called Not Today.

“I still hear people say it in the church, ‘What are we doing? We’re making a movie? What are you talking about?”’ Jon Van Dyke, Friends Church’s media director, told the PBS show Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. ...

Friends Church committed to help free Dalits who had been trafficked and to build 200 schools for Dalit children. And, because the congregation is in the backyard of Hollywood, members decided to make a movie as well.

“It wasn’t just to make a movie, because we’re not in the movie business; we’re a church,” said Matthew Cork, the congregation’s lead pastor. “But as a church, we do have an obligation and a responsibility to tell the message, and we believe that this was the best way for us.”

Let’s not kid ourselves: Yorba Linda has about as much in common with Hollywood as Yonkers, N.Y., does with Times Square. And these aren’t the type of movies you’re going to see at the Arclight, and this is obviously not another story about Hollywood catering to Christians.

But these church-made fiilms can be effective for the purposes of sharing a message. Whether they are a good use of church funds is another question.

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March 14, 2011 | 11:58 pm

God did not smite Japanese with tsunami

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

People say the stupidest things. It’s just that before the explosion of social media, much of it was in private.

There has been no shortage of inappropriate things said and insensitivity shown toward victims of the tsunami in Japan. Just ask Gilbert Gottfried’s former employer Aflac. UCLA received a particularly nasty black eye when the girl above put that video on line. (The university has been in an uproar, and the chancellor condemned her words here.) And prophecy sites have been blaming the disaster on human sin.

At least the prophecy sites kept the blame global. Cappie Pondexter, a WNBA player and Exhibit A for why celebrities and athletes just shouldn’t speak, suggested the Japanese got what they had coming to them. From ESPN:

On Saturday, Pondexter tweeted: “What if God was tired of the way they treated their own people in there own country! Idk guys he makes no mistakes.”

She later tweeted: “u just never knw! They did pearl harbor so u can’t expect anything less.”

Pondexter also used used the racially derogatory term “jap,” when referring to someone who was offended by her comments.

I do not think she was referring to a Jewish American princess. ESPN went on to report on Pondexter’s lame “apology”—aka justification for her appalling comments.

In addition to Pondexter not understanding Christian theology, her comment also made no logical sense for two different reasons: Japan is not China, and even if it was China, how would drowning peasant farmers be retribution for human rights violations by the government?

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March 14, 2011 | 2:57 pm

Abbas condemns the Itamar murders

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

JewishJournal.com has a lot of content about the Itamar murders. A lot of it is commentary about the March 11 murder of five Jews in the West Bank. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called the attack of the Fogel family “despicable,” “inhuman and immoral”:

“A human being is not capable of something like that,” Abbas said in Arabic during an interview Monday morning on Israel Radio. His words were translated into Hebrew by the interviewer.

“Had we had advance information, we would have prevented this,” Abbas said of the March 11 attack that left five members of the Fogel family of Itamar dead, including a 3-month-old baby.

Abbas also said that the Palestinian Authority would work to find the killer or killers responsible, and that he has agreed to a request by Israel to launch a joint investigation.

Abbas, who called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday to offer his condolences—Netanyahu called them “weak and mumbled statements”—took issue during the interview with Netanyahu’s accusation that the Palestinian Authority incites against Israel in its mosques and schools. The PA leader offered to set up an Israeli-Palestinian-American committee to look into the allegations.

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March 12, 2011 | 2:52 pm

Peter King’s self-righteous ‘bloviations’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

U.S. Rep. Peter King’s controversial House hearing on radical Islam went off Thursday as expected—and it was followed by a pretty knee-jerk story from The Washington Post and Slate wondering where CAIR was.

The New York Times also wrote an editorial blasting King, and particularly taking aim at his self-righteousness. It’s not often you see religion in an NYT editorial, though I guess when it involves issues of Islamic terrorism the line between religion and politics is really difficult to see. And that’s part of the problem.

The Times opined:

Instead the New York Republican offered fresh variations on his sound and fury — first taking care to praise the “vast majority” of Muslim Americans, then impugning their patriotism in archly demanding, “moderate leadership must emerge from the Muslim community.”

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By the end of hearing, Mr. King was claiming personal courage in defying “political correctness.” There is nothing courageous about pandering or sowing hatred and fear.

The only good news is that Congressman King’s main success was how he punctured his own bloviations. This is small comfort to patriotic Muslim Americans, whom Mr. King unfortunately is promising to further bedevil at more hearings.

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March 11, 2011 | 12:40 pm

God and tsunamis

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

If you’re like me, you went to bed watching cable news last night and woke up to more images of the devastation in Japan. The scenes are evocative of the Sumatra tsunami six years ago, though, thankfully, the death toll is currently much, much lower.

I live a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean, so the tsunami watch for Southern California caught my attention. But I think that when disasters of this magnitude strike it’s difficult not to think about much bigger issues. Like, why if God is good does He let such awful things happen to His people?

I wrote a story about this back in 2005. As I’ve seen fit before, I think it’s relevant to excerpt it again here:

A natural disaster is, for many, the ultimate test of faith. For others, it is dramatic validation that either God doesn’t exist or that he is a sadistic supreme being.

In the past year, humanity has been rocked by a tsunami-spawning earthquake, two monster hurricanes in the U.S. Gulf Coast and the massive quake in Pakistan. In 2003, Southern Californians fell into their own hell when wildfires raged from Ventura County to eastern San Diego County, including the San Bernardino and San Gabriel mountains.

“If there was a God, how come he let all that happen?’ Tom Cotton, 51, of Pinion Hills asked while finishing a burger at a Carl’s Jr. in San Bernardino.

“If it’s his plan,’ Cotton said, scanning the restaurant as if he was going to curse, “he’s sure got a messed-up plan.’

God only knows what that plan might be.

“If God is wiser than we, His judgment must differ from ours on many things, and not least on good and evil,’ C.S. Lewis, the Christian philosopher and children’s author, wrote in “The Problem of Pain.’ “What seems to us good may therefore not be good in His Eyes, and what seems to us to be evil may not be evil.’

Lewis begins the book by stating that when he was an atheist, he, too, believed God was either cruel or a farce.

“If you ask me to believe that this is the work of a benevolent and omnipotent spirit, I reply that all the evidence points in the opposite direction.’

Tsunamis, more than any other “act of God” raise questions about the Genesis story of the flood and God’s first covenant with all of mankind: that he would never flood the entire Earth again. So what to make of such destruction?

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March 9, 2011 | 10:53 pm

Rob Bell’s new theology on heaven and hell

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve been sleeping on the whole controversy over what Rob Bell says in his new book “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.” The gist of the book is that, according to the publisher, “a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering.”

That’s a pretty bold statement for a Christian minister. Especially one of Bell’s rockstar evangelical status. And, as you could imagine, it hasn’t one over well. The Christian Science Monitor explains:

debates over hell are as old as the Bible itself and the near-unanimous belief in eternal punishment has been giving way to kinder, gentler views (including universal salvation) about the afterlife since at least the 19th century, so why is Bell’s book causing such controversy today?

In part, it’s because defenders of traditional doctrine may have reached a statistical tipping point, making the perceived defection of one of their own on such a core, sensitive point seem all the more significant. Indeed, the fault line is no longer between evangelicals and mainstream culture; it’s between a core group of traditionalists and the rest of evangelicals (especially younger ones) who are increasingly uncomfortable with “my way or the highway” doctrine.

According to a 2007 Pew survey, a full 57 percent of evangelicals believe that many religions can lead to eternal life, while only 24 percent of evangelicals agree that “my religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life.” And more than half agree that “there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of my religion.”

I remember that Pew survey, and I still can’t comprehend how a majority of evangelicals could believe something that is antithetical to central evangelical theology. Which brings us back to Bell. Thoughts?

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March 8, 2011 | 2:55 pm

More opposition to Rep. Peter King’s radical Islam hearing

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

As U.S. Rep. Peter King’s hearings on radical Islam approach, I’m seeing more protests and condemnation. This one, from J. Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, arrived today in my inbox:

“I know a little about how this feels when last week, the Westboro Baptist Church — and their hellish, venomous speech — was thought by many to characterize all Baptists,” Walker said. “I had to remind the media that Roger Williams, Martin Luther King Jr. and Jimmy Carter are more typical of Baptists than Rev. Phelps.”

Walker said “the hearing will send a further message that Muslims present a greater threat of terrorism than other religions,” and “it would imply that the potential for terrorism from outside of Islam is not significant enough to merit a hearing.”

Walker and Co would like to see the hearings broadened to include religious extremists outside the Muslim fold.

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