May 14, 2007 | 8:59 pm

Rebuilding spiritually in Greensburg

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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When 95 percent of Greensburg, Kan., was leveled May 4 by an F5 tornado, the town’s 1,400 residents were left homeless. But yesterday, more than twice the tiny town’s population returned to Greensburg for spiritual replenishing.

News reports referred to the mass worship service as a non-denominational gathering. In Los Angeles, that would mean it included Christians and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and non-believers, too. In Kansas,  it means Methodists and Catholics and Lutherans.

It remains unclear what will come of Greensburg. USA Today asked, “Can the town be saved? And if so, will enough folks return to make it the community it was 10 days ago, before the tornado?”

For the religious minded, this is, of course, one of the most difficult occurrences to reconcile with a benevolent God.

At the worship service, Tim Henning, pastor of Peace Lutheran Church in Greensburg, compared town residents to Job, whom God tested by allowing Satan to take strip from him his family, his prosperity and his health.

“We are like him, we lost everything,” he said.

Henning reminded residents that God was still with them.

“Trust in the Lord with all your strength — God bless Greensburg,” he said.

 

May 14, 2007 | 5:16 pm

Jews too powerful, talk too much about Holocaust

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

That’s according to 2,700 European adults surveyed by the ADL.

The survey found that a majority of those in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland believe Jews are more loyal to Israel than the country they live in; that Jews have too much power in business (39 percent of those polled) and financial markets (44 percent); talk too much about the Holocaust (47 percent); and are responsible for killing Jesus (20 percent).

In other news: Europeans have discovered a Jewish conspiracy for world domination, informally dubbed The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

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May 13, 2007 | 8:38 pm

More than abortion and gays

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Evangelical phenom Rick Warren made a refreshing statement yesterday at a three-day summit in the heart of Religious Right activism, Colorado Springs, Colo. Via the LA Times:

“We’ve got some people who only focus on moral purity and couldn’t care less about the poor, the sick, the uneducated. And they haven’t done zip for those people,” said Warren, a mega-church pastor in California and author of the best-selling “The Purpose-Driven Life.”

Warren hastened to say that he also opposed abortion and gay marriage. But too often, he said, Christians these days are defined by their “big mouth” — what they argue against, not what they embrace. He pointed to a verse from the Book of James that calls caring for orphans an essential element of a “pure and undefiled” faith.

“It’s time for the church to stop debating the Bible and start doing it,” Warren said.

To be sure, several speakers stated that providing a viable adoption meant finding a safe home with “both a mommy and a daddy.”

(Extra reading: Check out Rob Eshman’s column about Warren’s Shabbat visit to Sinai Temple last year.)

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May 13, 2007 | 7:00 pm

‘Is Christianity Good for the World?’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Christian theologian Douglas Wilson and atheist Christopher Hitchens are debating that question at ChristianityToday.com. Here’s a snippet:

Hitchens: if (sic) Christianity is to claim credit for the work of outstanding Christians or for the labors of famous charities, then it must in all honesty accept responsibility for the opposite. I shall not condescend to your readers in specifying what these “opposites” are, but I suggest once more that you pay attention to the Golden Rule. If hymns and psalms were sung to sanctify slavery—just to take a recent example—and then sung by abolitionists, then surely the non-fanatical explanation is that morality requires no supernatural sanction? Every Christian church has had to make some apology for its role in the Crusades, slavery, anti-Semitism, and much else. I do not think that such humility discredits faith as such, because I tend to think that faith is a problem to begin with, but I do think that humility will lead to the necessary conclusion that religion is man-made.

Wilson: In short, if we point to our saints, you are going to demand that we point also to our charlatans, persecutors, shysters, slave-traders, inquisitors, hucksters, televangelists, and so on. Now allow me the privilege of pointing out the structure of your argument here. If a professor takes credit for the student who mastered the material, aced his finals, and went on to a career that was a benefit to himself and the university he graduated from, the professor must (fairness dictates) be upbraided for the dope-smoking slacker that he kicked out of class in the second week. They were both formally enrolled, is that not correct? They were both students, were they not?

What you are doing is saying that Christianity must be judged not only on the basis of those who believe the gospel in truth and live accordingly but also on the basis of those baptized Christians who cannot listen to the Sermon on the Mount without a horse laugh and a life to match. You are saying that those who excel in the course and those who flunk out of it are all the same. This seems to me to be a curious way of proceeding.

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May 12, 2007 | 9:54 pm

Out of the cocoon

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

New look and logo for The God Blog, with a little branding for my new home, The Jewish Journal. I wouldn’t say I’ve matured too much, however, with this mug shot, a favorite of my wife, gracing the page.

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May 11, 2007 | 12:42 pm

The media’s Mormon problem

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This is getting really old. Mitt Romney is a legitimate candidate for the Republican presidential ticket. A conservative governor of one of the most liberal states in the union, maybe he could rebuild some of those political bridges burnt and blown up during the past six years. But Romney won’t be president. He won’t even edge the hapless—and surprisingly popular, though increasingly less so—pro-choice Rudy Giuliani.

Why is it unlikely he’ll get the primary nod? Because he is Mormon—in fact, his great-great-grandfather was a polygamist martyr—and that is all the media seems to be able to talk about. The Washington Monthly, Reuters, The New York Times, and even conservative talk-show host Hugh Hewitt.

In November, Time asked “A Mormon for President?” shortly after two-thirds of Americans said they wouldn’t vote one of Joseph Smith‘s followers into the Oval Office (though there are 15 in Congress). In March, however, Gallup released a new poll saying 72 percent of Americans would vote for a qualified Mormon for president. Back came Time yesterday with this story:

John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960 was supposed to have laid the “religious question” to rest, yet it arises again with a fury. What does the Constitution mean when it says there should be no religion test for office? It plainly means that a candidate can’t be barred from running because he or she happens to be a Quaker or a Buddhist or a Pentecostal. But Mitt Romney’s candidacy raises a broader issue: Is the substance of private beliefs off-limits? You can ask if a candidate believes in school vouchers and vote for someone else if you disagree with the answer. But can you ask if he believes that the Garden of Eden was located in Jackson County, Mo., as the Mormon founder taught, and vote against him on the grounds of that answer? Or, for that matter, because of the kind of underwear he wears?

Slate editor Jacob Weisberg threw down the challenge after reviewing some of Joseph Smith’s more extravagant assertions. “He was an obvious con man,” Weisberg wrote. “Romney has every right to believe in con men, but I want to know if he does, and if so, I don’t want him running the country.” That argument, counters author and radio host Hugh Hewitt, amounts to unashamed bigotry and opens the door to any person of any faith who runs for office being called to account for the mysteries of personal belief. He has published A Mormon in the White House?, a chronicle of Romney’s rise as business genius, Olympic savior, political star. But Hewitt has a religious mission as well when he cites a survey in which a majority of Evangelicals said voting for a Mormon was out of the question. If that general objection means they would not consider Romney in 2008, Hewitt warns, then prejudice is legitimized, and “it will prove a disastrous turning point for all people of faith in public life.”

The Mormon question has settled in right next to the issue of whether a twice-divorced man has credibility discussing family values or whether changing one’s mind on an issue like abortion is a sign of moral growth or cynical retreat. Unlike in 1960, today the argument is less about the role of religion in public life than in private. It is about what our faith says about our judgment and how our traditions shape our instincts—and about what we have the right to ask those who run for the highest office in the land.

 

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May 11, 2007 | 11:10 am

‘The Terrorists Next Door?’

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It’s a scary time to be an American Muslim. Islamophobia is more pervasive now than it was in the wake of 9/11. Those sentiments could have only been heightened Tuesday when the government announced it was charging six foreign-born “radical Islamists” with plotting to attack Jersey’s Ft. Dix and kill as many soldiers before dying as martyrs. The news was followed by these headlines Thursday:

“The Terrorists Next Door? Plot Suspects Lived Quietly in Suburb”

and

“Religion Guided 3 Held in Fort Dix Plot”

That first story was in The Washington Post. The second is from The New York Times.

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May 10, 2007 | 5:09 pm

Is Karl Rove an atheist?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

At the least, Rove‘s not a person of faith. That’s what godless superstar Christopher Hitchens says in an interview with New York magazine. Here’s the excerpt from the Washington Monthly‘s Political Animal:

Has anyone in the Bush administration confided in you about being an atheist?

Well, I don’t talk that much to them — maybe people think I do. I know something which is known to few but is not a secret. Karl Rove is not a believer, and he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, but when asked, he answers quite honestly. I think the way he puts it is, “I’m not fortunate enough to be a person of faith.”

The Political Animal—also known as Kevin Drum—wasn’t surprised.

In fact, I’ve never really thought Rove was all that committed a conservative, either. He strikes me more as a pure political operative, someone who could have signed up with either side if different opportunities had presented themselves when he was young. But he signed up with the conservative cause early, and once that happened he was the kind of person to jump in with both feet.

But Mark Kleiman, a UCLA public policy prof, was a bit more cynical:

If we’ve learned anything in the last six years, it’s that when Karl Rove’s lips are moving, he’s lying, generally for partisan advantage. He knows full well that (1) he’s unpopular (2) atheism is unpopular and (3) voters still tend to associate Republicans with religiosity and Democrats with godlessness. So he’s decided to pretend to be an atheist, hoping that some of the bad reputation he’s worked so hard to earn rubs off on us.

Un-uh. No way. I’m not having any. The godly put Rove and his puppet in power, and the godly are stuck with the pair of them.

By the way, a Google image search for Karl Rove will turn up some comical mock photos, like the one above.

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May 10, 2007 | 1:37 pm

UC Irvine safe for Jews

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Martha Mecartney, chairwoman of UC Irvine‘s academic senate, was surprised recently to hear her daughter relay a school friend’s fear: “Since she and some of her friends were Jewish, it was not safe for them to walk around the UCI campus.”

“Why in the world,” Mecartney asked in an op-ed in today’s OC Register, “would this untruth be spread around Orange County?”

The simple answer is that, among its growing stature as a premier institution, UCI has become the bad boy of collegiate Jewish-Muslim relations. I blogged last month about California campuses’ reputation as “Hotbeds of Anti-Israel Rhetoric.” The article from the Forward focused on UCI and the cadre of rabble rousers, like Amir Abdel Malik Ali, who are invited to campus by a small group of MSA students to praise suicide bombers and rail on the “Zionist Jews.”

Last spring, Ali gave a notorious speech at U.C. Irvine during a week of activities sponsored by the campus Muslim Student Union under the rubric “Holocaust in the Holy Land.” Speaking on a campus plaza behind a sign reading “Israel, the 4th Reich,” Ali noted that Israelis are “reluctant to get on buses and things, or go to the café,” adding, “It’s about time that they live in fear.” He said that whereas Israelis are “coming to live,” they are opposed by “people who are ready to die, who say either victory or martyrdom. You can’t fight against that.”

“We will fight you until we are either martyred or until we are victorious,” he said. “That’s how we look at it. And they know that that’s how Muslims believe.”

Mecartney takes issue with these speakers and says it is unfair to broad brush UCI a hostile place for Jews.

It appears that the goal of these speakers and their supporters on our campus is not to foster discussion and bring attention to possible solutions for the plight of the Palestinians but to demonize Israel and American Jews who support the existence of Israel. This I find highly repulsive and against what I believe in, which is tolerance and respect for all and a peaceful and productive solution to a long-term political and religious challenge in a land claimed by many peoples for many centuries.

But to equate a few individuals who visit the campus each year and spout vitriolic speech (which is their constitutional right) with UC Irvine being unsafe for Jewish students is a horrible misrepresentation of the truth. There has been vandalism of signs erected by both pro-Israel and anti-Israel factions, but there have been no documented cases of physical violence against any Jewish students. The campus is safe for all students – in fact, UCI is one of the safest campuses in the entire UC system. Jewish students must know this since they have been coming to UC Irvine in increasing numbers each year, and this past fall UC Irvine had the highest-ever number of Jewish students enrolled.

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May 10, 2007 | 10:23 am

Whose rebbe is Woody Allen?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I guess he’s American Apparel founder Dov Charney’s in this billboard from NY’s Lower East Side, via the Forward.

Beside the photo of Allen dressed as a Hasid are the words “der heyliker rebe” — “the holy rebbe.” Alex Spunt of AA told the Forward, “Woody Allen is our spiritual leader.”

I’m looking around Los Angeles to see if American Apparel, which is based here, has put the same ad up. Let me know if you see it.

As for Charney, a self-described “Jewish hustler,” he has been a conspicuous character, with a reputation for racy ads and the cloud of harassment accusations that the Jewish Journal wrote about in this cover story two years ago. (“I could pull my penis out right now,” he told The Journal, “and I guarantee you no one would be offended.”)

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May 10, 2007 | 10:12 am

The pope in Brazil

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

GetReligion has a wrap-up of the myriad stories previewing Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Brazil, which began Wednesday. It discusses the two main story lines: that the conservative pontiff will be facing his long-term foe—Catholicism’s “liberation theology,” a socialist remnant that persists in South America—and the raise of Protestantism.

As is often the case, GetReligion, which critiques the way we—the media—cover religion, takes issue with the banging of the cliche gong.

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May 9, 2007 | 1:40 pm

Mickey’s anti-Semitic outburst

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

There has been plenty of accusations that Walt Disney was an anti-Semite—remember the “Simpsons” episode where Bart and Lisa watch the video of Itchy and Scratchy Land founder Roger Myers Sr., “who loved everyone and was loved by all, except in 1938, when he was heavily criticized for his controversial release Nazi Supermen Are Our Superiors”?— but who knew Mickey hates the Jews?

From the NY Daily News:

Meet Farfur, a life-size clone of Walt Disney’s star, complete with big ears, a squeaky voice, a tuxedo with tails, a red bow tie and white gloves.

Starring on Hamas’ new kiddie TV show “Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” Farfur tells children to drink milk, pray daily - and take up AK-47 assault rifles to defeat Israel and the U.S.

Farfur sings, dances and taunts President Bush, Secretary of State Rice, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has been in a coma for months.

“We will win, Bush!” Farfur sang on a recent episode. “We will win, Condoleezza [Rice]. We will win, Olmert. We will win, Sharon! Ah, Sharon is dead,” he then quipped.

A little girl named Saraa serves as the terror mouse’s sidekick and says things like, “We want to resist against the enemy, and we don’t want to surrender.”

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