April 12, 2011 | 11:34 am

Pastor says Justin Bieber not macho enough, part of Satan’s plan

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Follow me on

I guess Pastor Steven Anderson is not a Belieber. Must be an Esperanza Spalding fan.

If you recognize the pastor’s name, it’s because he was praying that President Obama would “melt like a snail” and make his way to hell.

April 11, 2011 | 11:30 pm

The Exodus 2.0

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Clever Pesach video from the folks at Aish HaTorah

1 Comments — Leave your comment

April 11, 2011 | 3:52 pm

Baseball and Jewish greatness

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Speaking of baseball, I’m eagerly awaiting my review copy of Peter Miller’s “Jews and Baseball,” a documentary that I can only assume does for baseball what “The First Basket,” which I mentioned here and in my feature on the rich history of Jews in professional basketball, did for my favorite pastime.

In particular, I’m looking forward to what I’ve been told is the longest sit-down interview ever given by Sandy Koufax. Shtickball sums it up as:

A big part of the film is devoted to Sandy Koufax and his legacy as the greatest Jewish ballplayer ever. Koufax is notoriously stingy about giving interviews, but agreed to participate in the film and comes off as a genuinely thoughtful, nice guy. The film also deals with Koufax (and later, Shawn Green’s) decision not to play on Yom Kippur. Both players’ teams were bidding for the playoffs, and the decision to ‘be cool, stay in shul’ showed not just piety but a sincere effort to stand in solidarity with the Jewish nation. Their decision to observe the holiest of Jewish holidays rather than play (admittedly crucial) games established Koufax and Green as great Jewish role models.

More on the film here. I’ll let you know when I’ve had a chance to watch.

In the meantime, enjoy some current Jewish dominance on the diamond. Braun and Kinsler have been raking.

1 Comments — Leave your comment

April 11, 2011 | 11:26 am

Freedman on ‘Book of Mormon’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I’ve mentioned the broadly good reviews that the new Broadway musical from the creators of “South Park”—that would be “The Book of Mormon”—has been getting. Now the NYT’s Samuel G. Freedman, one of my favorite religion writers, gets in on it:

For all of its lewd jokes and potty-mouth banter, “The Book of Mormon” commingles the profane and the sacred, dramatizing the culture shock, the physical danger and the theological doubts that infuse what one might call the missionary narrative. That narrative has been lived out for centuries by Western missionaries in a range of denominations, and it has been expressed in recent decades in a spectrum of art and literature.

“The Book of Mormon” forms part — admittedly a loopy and idiosyncratic part — of that corpus of work. Both the musical’s respect for faith-based idealism and its criticism of fundamentalist certitude have informed such films as Roland Joffé’s “The Mission” and Bruce Beresford’s “Black Robe,” novels including “The Call” by John Hersey and “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver, as well as nonfiction accounts like “The Rebbe’s Army” by Sue Fishkoff, which is not even about Christians but the Hasidic Chabad movement’s emissaries to wayward, far-flung Jews.

“The missionary experience offers several things from a storytelling point of view,” said Steven D. Greydanus, a film critic for the National Catholic Register and Christianity Today, a magazine geared to evangelical Protestants. “There is the cross-cultural experience, an element of exoticism. There’s a chance to see characters display heroism, possibly even martyrdom. But at the same time, in some of the work, the missionary experience has been problematized with concerns about imperialism, condescension to natives, the religious arrogance of claiming to know the truth.”

Read the rest here.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

April 11, 2011 | 12:47 am

Passover comes early with Glenn Beck’s exit?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This story from RNS mentions that Jews are divided in their support and loathing of the now-former FOX News commentator Glenn Beck. But they focus on Jewish Funds for Justice, which is rejoicing Beck’s, um, exodus on the eve of Passover:

Jewish Funds for Justice has proclaimed victory in a statement that uses the grateful Passover chant Dayenu! — “It would have been enough!”– to celebrate the anti-Beck campaign’s fruitful end.

“If the Jewish community and our allies cried out in one voice when Beck compared Reform Judaism to radical Islam, Dayenu!” the group said in a statement. “If thousands of our supporters invested in and sustained us to do this work, Dayenu!”

The statement concludes, “This Passover, let us celebrate the expanded freedom in our public discourse.”

This is not Beck’s first appearance on this blog, not even this year. But I suspect there will be less reason to mention him going forward as he moves from prominence.

P.S. This post was not paid for by George Soros.

2 Comments — Leave your comment

April 10, 2011 | 11:08 pm

Manny Ramirez: ‘God knows what’s best’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Well, at least God knows what Manny Ramirez is doing:

“I’m at ease,” Ramirez told ESPNdeportes.com by phone from his home in Miami. “God knows what’s best (for me). I’m now an officially retired baseball player. I’ll be going away on a trip to Spain with my old man.”

Manny being Manny? Whatever.

If that comment from Ramirez, who retired Friday after being notified by the league about a drug “issue,” sounds familiar, it’s because Manny has been down this road before. A-Rod too has blamed God for his PED mistakes.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

April 9, 2011 | 2:04 am

Priest admits affair with cousin

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This story from my friend Howard Blume at the Los Angeles Times is a real doozy:

A well-known San Bernardino priest with a large television ministry will take a leave of absence in the wake of the public disclosure of an affair with a school-system administrator in Northern California, church officials confirmed Thursday.

Father Mike Manning, a popular TV minister and technology pioneer who developed sermon applications for smart phones, will step down “to take some time to reflect on what he’s gone through and why it happened and to look at that in the context of his priesthood to get himself oriented so he can go forward positively,” said John Andrews, director of communications for the Diocese of San Bernardino. “Whenever a situation of sin with a priest happens that’s often what is recommended or decided.”

The decision to take a leave was reached mutually by Manning and local church leadership, Andrews said. Manning belongs to an order within the church called the Society of the Divine Word, which has ultimate responsibility for his pastoral assignments.

The kicker, which comes in the next paragraph, is that Manning’s affair was with his second cousin. Of course, this being the Catholic Church, the “affair” could have been much worse ...

I cut my teeth creating a religion beat at The Sun in San Bernardino, but I don’t recall Manning’s name. I do, however, remember a diocesan official once telling me that if their priests screwed up, they’d prefer that it was with an adult woman. Can’t argue with that logic. But this mistake doesn’t quite fit because, you know, it was with his cousin.

1 Comments — Leave your comment

April 7, 2011 | 1:29 pm

Beastie Boys bringing the Hollywood ‘Hot Sauce’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This is awesome. Among the cameos I count: Elijah Wood, Will Ferrell, Danny McBride, Jack Black, Seth Rogen, John C. Riley, Stanley Tucci. Will Arnett and Ted Danson.

0 Comments — Leave your comment

April 7, 2011 | 9:14 am

Obama’s re-election campaign goes to church

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The second image in the opening of President Obama’s new campaign video that went live after he officially announced he was running for re-election is unmistakable. It’s a church, and it seems to send the message that both Obama is a religious man and that he’s in touch with small-town Americans.

We’ve been down the path of Obama’s religious and spiritual life before. For a trip down memory lane, click here and here and here and here and here.

1 Comments — Leave your comment

April 6, 2011 | 5:44 pm

Illinois judge rules in favor of pharmacists

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

A victory for pharmacists who don’t want to fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill. Via RNS:

The Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act was passed in 1998 to shield health care workers from going against their own beliefs. In 2005, then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich issued a ruling to force “pharmacies to fill prescriptions without making moral judgments.”

Two pharmacists, Luke VanderBleek and Glenn Kosirog, sued for the right to not dispense the pills.

Circuit Judge John Belz wrote that the 1998 law “was designed to forbid the government from doing what it aims to do here: coercing individuals or entities to provide healthcare services that violate their belief.”

3 Comments — Leave your comment

April 6, 2011 | 4:36 pm

The high school atheist club

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

You know it’s hard out there for an atheist.

I’ve written a lot before about being an “out atheist” on college campuses and in other areas of life. But here’s an interesting story from The New York Times about a high school atheist club.

An excerpt:

Club members discussed what to do about Faith Week. Rutherford High’s two Christian clubs will be sponsoring a series of before-school prayer circles around the flagpole this week, and several of the atheists felt a need to respond in some way. “We can set up informational tables near the flagpole and do our own speeches,” said Mr. Creamer, who suggested waiting a few weeks. “Remember, we’re not trying to be confrontational; this will be a counterpoint.”

Mr. Creamer, 47, an English teacher and longtime atheist who grew up in a family of Free Will Baptists, is constantly urging club members to “be friendly, put on those smiles — people don’t expect that from atheists.”

The Christians and atheists at Rutherford High get along better than some might expect. Joshua Mercer, a senior, who is president of Ignite, a Christian club, and Jim, the atheist president, are close friends. They love comparing philosophies, and giving each other a hard time. “We like to go to Taco Bell together,” Joshua said.

Still, he worries about Jim and the other atheists. “If they don’t accept Jesus Christ as a savior, they will definitely go to hell,” said Joshua, who rises at 4:30 each morning to read the Bible with his grandmother.

But at least there bellies will be full with disgusting faux Mexican food.

3 Comments — Leave your comment

April 5, 2011 | 11:42 pm

Swansea house doing Hitler impersonation

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I started cracking up in the law library when I saw this one. Do you see this house’s likeness to Hitler?

Here’s the story from the Daily Mail:

The slanting roof is said to resemble the Fuhrer’s slicked down, side-parted hair while the front door lintel conjures up his moustache. The end-of-terrace in Port Tenant, Swansea, is home to a pensioner, said to be baffled by the attention.

(skip)

Neighbours are seeing the funny side. ‘People are saying the house is the third on the Reich,’ one said.

I see the resemblance, though it’s a bit more of a stretch than the U.S. Navy barrack that looked like a swastika.

0 Comments — Leave your comment