February 6, 2012 | 10:33 am

If you OCeeker, you will find

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

This is definitely not your father’s faith column.

The OCeeker, a new feature from the OC Weekly, offers reviews of houses of worship in Orange County. It’s a great idea, and I can see why the alternative news weekly’s editor in chief—that Mexican guy—is so excited about it.

The OCeeker is Josh Dulaney, who comes by way of my old stomping grounds, the San Bernardino Sun, but brings a very different voice—complete with f-bombs and talk of Calvinists.

The inaugural review focuses on a Mars Hill’s OC offshoot, “where one will not find sh*tty little anthems of praise,” which coincidentally meets at the Observatory music hall. It turns out that when the OCeeker visited, Mark Driscoll was in town:

Driscoll is constant fodder in the evangelical blogosphere. Whether it’s his views on Christian manhood, or his tendency to wax long about all things Driscoll, he feeds the blog beast with one money quote after another. He was there to encourage the new church and give a message based on his controversial book, Real Marriage—a manual on matrimony and sanctified sex. Go Maaark! Git bizzy! Go Maaark! Git bizzy! It was standing room only in the temporary temple, where DJ Quik ironically is scheduled this month to bust rhymes about “Sweet Black P*ssy.”

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Ultimately, Driscoll urged the men, mostly in their 20s and sporting hip haircuts, to treat their wives, mostly in their 20s and flaunting SoCal couture, as Christ treats the church—with love, respect and understanding. It was an apt illustration plucked from the pages of the New Testament.

A high point of the message was Driscoll’s exhortation to men who probably aren’t ready for marriage:

“If you’re a guy who still thinks that The Big Bang Theory is interesting, that Zach Galifianakis is funny, that Seth Rogan has interesting insights, that David Spade contributes anything to the human race, (or) Adam Sandler has ever made a movie worth watching, punch yourself in the face.”

The OCeeker has an edge to it that makes it unique in the arena of religion reporting. (Funny, I’ve always told people that religion reporting is not about reporting what happened at St. Michael’s on Sunday—but for the OCeeker, it kind of is.) It’s also comes off as knowledgeable of the world of religion. However, the tone borders on condescending.

Maybe that came from a general dislike for Driscoll or a disagreement over the Mars Hill doctrine or a disdain for religion in general. I guess that that will become clearer as the OCeeker reviews more houses of worship. Gustavo Arellano, in an editor’s note, said that we can expect to see Josh Dulaney finding “Holy Rollers, mosques, parish, or Zoroastrianism center in the search for the holy, the sacred, and the freaky.”

I’m excited about this new feature, but also interested to see how it works out. Religion reporters certainly aren’t above having some fun with their stories—nor should they be—but they are best when they aren’t making fun of the people in their stories. That’s what Bill Maher didn’t get with “Religulous.” The result was a funny movie, even brilliant, but it wasn’t a sincere documentary and it didn’t reflect religion but only fringe fundamentalists.

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February 5, 2012 | 10:04 am

Ski resort Jesus statue gets another 10 years from Forest Service

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Aerial view of Whitefish Mountain Resort. Photo by Wikipedia/Donnie Clapp

There is a statue of a skiing Jesus at Whitefish Mountain Resort in Whitefish, Mont. The statue, a memorial to World War II veterans that has resided on federal land since 1995, was evicted by the U.S. Forest Service a year ago. That move led to protests from religious groups and Montana’s congressman.

Last week, the Jesus statue got a 10-year extension on its lease. The AP reports:

Forest Service supervisor Chip Weber said the revised decision took into account that the statue is eligible for placement on National Register of Historic Places, and that no substantive concerns related to environmental conditions were found in about 95,000 comments received by the agency.

The latest decision renews a 10-year special-use permit for the Knights of Columbus Council, members of which placed the statue there.

“I understand the statue has been a long-standing object in the community since 1955, and I recognize that the statue is important to the community for its historical heritage based on its association with the early development of the ski area on Big Mountain,” Weber said.

Of course, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which claims that the statue’s presence on federal land is a blatant violation of the separation of church and state, isn’t pleased with the issuance of a new special-use permit. Annie Laurie Gaylor, the organization’s co-president, called the permit a “sham.”

A lawsuit challenging the decision can be expected. And I don’t think that supporters can lean too much on the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision upholding the constitutionality of the mojave cross—since stolen—which was heavily tied to the facts of that case and, in my opinion, was not the watershed moment that proponents of religious symbols on public land wanted it to be.

So how will this one turn out?

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February 3, 2012 | 10:20 am

Komen reverses course; resumes funding Planned Parenthood breast cancer screenings

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Race for the Cure 2005 Breast cancer fundraising race. Photo by Wikipedia/Aine D.

The Susan G. Komen-Planned Parenthood saga this week has come full circle.

After the Susan G. Komen Foundation said they would no longer fund breast cancer screening by Planned Parenthood, the public reaction showed just how divisive abortion remains in American society. And now, in a complete reversal, Komen says it won’t stop sending funds to Planned Parenthood.

Komen founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker reportedly announced the about-face on the foundation’s blog. That link appears dead, but NPR excerpted the announcement of a policy change while it was still accessible:

“We want to apologize to the American public for recent decisions that cast doubt upon our commitment to our mission of saving women’s lives.

The events of this week have been deeply unsettling for our supporters, partners and friends and all of us at Susan G. Komen. We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons or to specifically penalize Planned Parenthood. They were not.

Our original desire was to fulfill our fiduciary duty to our donors by not funding grant applications made by organizations under investigation. We will amend the criteria to make clear that disqualifying investigations must be criminal and conclusive in nature and not political. That is what is right and fair.

Our only goal for our granting process is to support women and families in the fight against breast cancer. Amending our criteria will ensure that politics has no place in our grant process. We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.”

More from NPR here.

Whether pro-choice or pro-life, we can all agree that cancer doesn’t care. And I think that is what made a lot of people so upset about Komen’s original decision to de-fund. But, at the same time, those who were protesting the decision were willing to stop supporting the leading advocate for women against a life-threatening disease. Now that Komen has reversed course, they can certainly expect a protest from the pro-life side.

It’s all a bit head-spinning and leaves you wondering how Komen can repair their brand and get back to doing what they do best: helping women.

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February 2, 2012 | 9:43 am

Obama grounds financial reform in ‘love thy neighbor’ at National Prayer Breakfast

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Barack Obama and Leader Nancy Pelosi at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington Feb. 2. Photo by REUTERS/Larry Downing

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning—and not the People’s Prayer Breakfast—President Obama grounded his push for financial reform in the Bible. Specifically, Obama said:

And so when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody. But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to ‘love thy neighbor as thyself.’

Obama followed that up with an ecumenical tip of the hat—“I know the version of that Golden Rule is found in every major religion and every set of beliefs — from Hinduism to Islam to Judaism to the writings of Plato”—but it was still interesting to hear Obama putting such emphasis on biblical values in encouraging through and signing in the Dodd-Frank Act. And he didn’t stop there.

Now you’d expect Obama to be a bit more effusive about his Christian beliefs at the National Prayer Breakfast. And you wouldn’t simply be a cynic to point out that it’s campaign season and Obama needs to grab some of those moderate Christian voters, particularly evangelicals, who don’t know what to do with the GOP candidates.

But there seems to me a good deal of sincerity here. Much as questions about his faith have haunted Obama, this is not the first time he’s spoken openly about how Christian values have influenced his politics. In doing so, he comes off as a pretty run-of-the-mill liberal Christian. Which probably isn’t far off.

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February 1, 2012 | 6:22 pm

Shabbat dinner from the Davos World Economic Forum

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Liz Claman (courtesy photo)

In recent years, Fox Business Network anchor Liz Claman has made it a priority to observe Shabbat at the Davos economic forum. Her thoughts from the 2010 dinner appeared on wowowow and were excerpted on this blog.

Before she left for Davos last week, Liz offered to write The God Blog from become an annual Shabbat dinner. My questions are in bold:

Why do a Shabbat in Davos? Is this about breaking bread with those attending or about observing the Sabbath?

It’s a little of both.  The World Economic Forum is like a gigantic magnet that pulls in world leaders and business people from around the globe to this tiny Swiss Alpine ski village. At some point, someone must have looked around and said, “My goodness, an important number of people here are Jewish. Let’s give them a place not only to mark Shabbat but to meet and schmooze.”

Who is at this year’s Davos Shabbat dinner?

Everywhere you turned, there was someone who’s got an important and pivotal role in either business, politics or both.

Israel’s president Shimon Peres and Minister of Finance Ehud Barak were the star guests. Israel’s Central Bank Governor Stanley Fischer, JP Morgan Chase International Chairman Jacob Frankel, U.S. Undersecretary of State Bob Hormats, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Bank Hapoalim Chairman Yair Seroussi, Warren Buffett’s grandson Howard Buffett Jr., Fortune’s Adam Lashinsky, Nobel Prize winners Astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter and Biologist Bob Horvitz,  billionaire investor Jeff Greene, Henry Schein CEO Stan Bergman, the list goes on.

Who took a surprising role in dinner?

Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg. She’s an amazing singer and led us all in “Shalom Alechem.” It was very emotional. There we all were at the Hotel Seehof singing at the top of our lungs in a country that hadn’t exactly extended real help to the Jews during World War II. Definitely an important moment and real affirmation of our resilience.

Davos this year has not been without Occupy protestors. How has that affected the tone of the conference? The dinner?

One of the first things my crew and I did upon arrival was to head over to the Occupy Davos location. The protestors were building igloos and I felt we as journalists should take a look. The mandate of the World Economic Forum is to “solve the world’s problems.”

One issue on a lot of participants’ plates was fixing the income inequality gap, a big Occupy complaint. We got there and found 3 guys slicing ice blocks. We talked to them. They are still angry at the banks. As one protestor put it, “They got bailed out when they got into trouble. So many of us lost our jobs because of their mistakes. Where’s our bailout?”.  They told me they were hoping for more people to amass but Davos is a 2 and a half hour winding drive from Zurich. Even with only 3 people there, it was a topic of conversation at dinner.

Ehud Barak brought up Israeli’s complaints about high inflation and unemployment, saying this was equally if not more important than Occupy Wall Street to discuss. Israel, he asserted, needs to be stronger than ever to face the always present threat Arab nations and Iran pose. “Let me remind you of a Jewish saying,” he said with a smile. “Be healthy because troubles will never be in short supply.”

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February 1, 2012 | 11:29 am

Occupy the National Prayer Breakfast?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Move over National Prayer Breakfast. Folks affiliated with Occupy DC announced today that the newly organized People’s Prayer Breakfast will be meeting at the same time Thursday in Washington as a prayer alternative to the 59-year-old event.

Jaweed Kaleem has a good article about this at Huffington Post:

“We thought prayer shouldn’t be used for access to power or to move forward people’s agendas,” said Brian Merritt, an organizer of the alternative breakfast who is pastor of the city’s Palisades Community Church. “Prayer connects us to something greater than ourselves, but also moves us in action for those around us. It challenges us to confront others’ needs.”

So while dignitaries and the nation’s leaders munch on an elaborate meal—a ticket to the formal prayer breakfast has been $650 in past years—the free People’s breakfast will entertain a little over 200 people for coffee, danishes, meditation and prayer.

“We are not expecting any representatives or senators or the president, but they are all welcome to come,” Merritt said of the guest list, which includes rabbis and imams.

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“We aren’t here to gain political points. We are here to make the point that God is not found exclusively among the powerful, but among the most dispossessed,” said Merritt, who typically pastors to an inter-denominational congregation of a few dozen. “It’s not okay to be given a feeling of comfort when there are so many people who are suffering. Prayer is something people agonize over, people cry over. But it’s not always something that makes those who have power feel comfortable.”

Read the rest here.

Obviously, the People’s Prayer Breakfast isn’t going to overtake the National Prayer Breakfast. But it’s interesting to see this alternative movement—and I say that as someone who has not been a fan of the whole Occupy movement.

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January 31, 2012 | 12:43 pm

Gingrich claims Romney denied kosher meals to Holocaust survivors

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Floridians are going to the polls today in the fourth primary of the presidential campaign season. And things are getting really non-kosher between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. I’m not referring to the converting-Jews-to-Christianity event that Gingrich found himself at Sunday.

This post is about Gingrich’s latest robocall, which accuses Romney of forcing Holocaust survivors to eat non-kosher food as he cut expenses from the Massachusetts budget. Here’s the text of the call:

As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed a bill paying for kosher food for our seniors in nursing homes. Holocaust survivors, who for the first time, were forced to eat non-kosher, because Romney thought $5 was too much to pay for our grandparents to eat kosher. Where is Mitt Romney’s compassion for our seniors? Tuesday you can end Mitt Romney’s hypocrisy on religious freedom, with a vote for Newt Gingrich. Paid for by Newt 2012.

The Romney campaign is saying that the call is an indication that Gingrich’s campaign is at death’s door. In fact, it’s long since come back from the grave. And the call is likely to resonate with some of Florida’s large elderly Jewish population. After all, it implies that even Hitler didn’t deny Jews kosher food (though I think that implication is historically wanting). The robocall is also not an accurate characterization of what happened in Massachusetts.

Commentary explains:

It’s a great campaign line for the former speaker, and the addition about George Soros is a nice touch. The problem is, Romney never actually “eliminated serving kosher food” to Jewish residents at state nursing homes, especially not in the way Gingrich describes.

In 2002, cuts in both federal and state subsidies to assisted living facilities, combined with the rising costs of maintaining the facilities, caused a couple of Massachusetts nursing homes to consider closing their kosher kitchens. It was an unfortunate decision, but there was never actually a concern that kosher residents would be forced to eat non-kosher food – the facilities were weighing several options, including busing in the food from other nursing homes or hiring catering services.

While Romney’s veto of a bill that would have provided $600,000 in funds to nursing homes made him appear insensitive to elderly Jews, Gingrich’s characterization of the veto as denying kosher food to Holocaust survivors has “little basis in reality”—a not uncommon theme for things that come out of the former Speaker’s mouth.

Still, it might work. I’m eager to see exit poll results regarding how Florida Jews vote.

(Hat tip to Huffington Post.)

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January 31, 2012 | 12:31 pm

Trial court to consider if university punished student for refusing to counsel gay students

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed summary judgment in an interesting free-speech and free-exercise case involving a graduate university student who refused to counsel a gay student. Howard Friedman at Religion Clause explains the background:

At issue was whether counseling student Julea Ward, who was enrolled in a practicum course, could because of her Christian religious beliefs refuse to counsel a gay client or at least have her faculty supervisor refer the client to another counselor if same-sex relationship issues arose. The University took disciplinary action against Ward under its rules that prohibit counseling students from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and require them to affirm a client’s values during counseling sessions.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Eastern Michigan University, meaning that there was no dispute over a material issue of fact and that the university was entitled to having Ward’s claims dismissed as a material of law. But the Sixth Circuit disagreed (full opinion here).

The judges reasoning boils down to this:

The key problem with the university’s position is not the adoption of this anti-discrimination policy, the existence of the practicum class or even the values-affirming message the school wants students to understand and practice. It is that the school does not have a no-referral policy for practicum students and adheres to an ethics code that permits values-based referrals in general. When the facts are construed in Ward’s favor, as they must be at this stage of the case, a reasonable jury could conclude that Ward’s professors ejected her from the counseling program because of hostility toward her speech and faith, not due to a policy against referrals…..

In other words, a material issue of fact exists as to whether the university’s practices could be used—or against Ward were used—to discriminate against a viewpoint that the university disfavored. The case now will go back to the district court for trial on the merits.

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January 30, 2012 | 4:52 pm

Converting Jews to Christianity and voting for Gingrich

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The connection between converting Jews and voting for Newt Gingrich is obvious, nu?

I’m on the road right now, but had to share this incredibly awkward news from Newt Gingrich’s final push in Florida. Yesterday the GOP presidential candidate Calista joined thousands of evangelical pastors at a conference at the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville.

From Yahoo! News:

Inside, the topic of the evening discussion, led by Joel Rosenberg, a novelist who writes about Islamic terrorism, focused partially on how to convert Jews to the faith.

“As a Jewish person,” Rosenberg, who was raised by a Jewish father and a Gentile mother, “our people really didn’t get it the first time Jesus came.”

He urged the audience not to be bashful, and to act quickly in case the End Times were nigh. “I know you know Jewish people,” he told them. “You have an accountant, you have a lawyer…”

Gingrich, perched in the back, waited patiently to be introduced to the nationwide audience of pastors. When Rosenberg finished his talk, a pastor announced to the crowd that the presidential candidate was in attendance.

Gingrich and Callista stood up, waved, and received a standing ovation.  The duo rushed out the back door immediately once the applause died down, and sped off to Mass.

You know, some of my best friends (and favorite relatives) are accountants and lawyers.

Just imagine if that had been Sarah Palin’s story. I’m not sure how many Florida Jews were thinking about voting Gingrich, but he probably needs to jump on this grenade before, say, 8 am tomorrow morning.

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January 29, 2012 | 10:02 pm

Israeli students cut class to protest military deferent for yeshiva students

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I can’t find news on whether they did, but hundreds of Israelis students were expected to cut class today in protest of legislation that would allow full-time yeshiva students to defer military service. Haaretz reported:

Hundreds of high-school students across the country are expected to boycott classes on Sunday in protest at the Tal Law, legislation that allows full-time Yeshiva students to defer their military service.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to let the Knesset decide the law’s future, after initially saying he would put an additional five-year extension to a cabinet vote on Sunday. Netanyahu changed course following objections by Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Debate on an extention of the law must begin by February 1 if the government is to preserve the option of extending it beyond its current expiration date in August.

Despite the prime minister’s decision to scrap the cabinet vote, the student walkout is expected to go ahead on Sunday from 9 A.M. to 10:30 A.M. in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Tiberias and Ramat Hasharon. Some students plan to protest outside their schools. Others are expected to study in the corridors or hold panel discussions on the issue.

“Although there won’t be a debate on the law in the cabinet, we intend to go to Jerusalem to come and say that we are not all excited over the change [in the location] of the debate. Instead, we believe we have to keep our finger on the pulse to immediately rescind this law,” said Zahara Berger Tzur of the Forum for Equal Service.

One of the initiators of the student walkout, Yotam Berger, is a senior at the Hebrew University High School in Jerusalem. (He is no relation to Berger Tzur but is also a member of the Forum for Equal Service.) Berger said 4,000 high-school students from around the country have signed a protest letter against the Tal Law. Berger’s school, which is commonly know as “Leyada,” will be holding a panel discussion on the legislation.

Also Sunday, the “Camp Sucker” movement visited Jerusalem to also protest the Tal Law. More from JPost.

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January 29, 2012 | 12:19 am

Why even those in majority should support church-state separation

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Jessica Ahlquist, a 16-year-old atheist, angered a lot of folks in Rhode Island when she asked her school to take down a prayer banner in the auditorium. The school board refused, bowing to public pressure, so Ahlquist’s father filed suit on her behalf. Jessica won earlier this month, which only turned up the heat and condemnation from community members.

One thing that’s often lost in disputes like this is the clear tension between the majority being able to publicly embrace their religion without making members of minority religious groups feel uncomfortable. And as is often the case, the members of the majority in this largely Catholic Rhode Island community didn’t seem too worried about how they would feel if Christianity generally or Catholicism specifically was suddenly in the minority and they were subjected to state-sponsored expression of, say, Judaism or Islam.

Zachary Bailes, writing for the Associated Baptist Press, picked up on this in a very nice piece:

An irony not lost on students of history is that Roger Williams, the prodigious 17th century rabble-rouser, founded America’s First Baptist Church in nearby Providence in the name of “soul freedom” after banishment from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Now the eventual state founded by the man who championed religious liberty long before it was popular (and some might contend that it still isn’t) appears antagonistic toward the idea.

Yes, religious liberty extends to those who choose not to participate in religion.

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Baptists, Catholics and atheists don’t agree on much, but they share a common story: religious oppression. Our forebear believed that faith and God were big enough that they did not need the sword of coercion or the endorsement of a government. Baptists, fundamentalist or not, should stand up and protect the rights of atheists, even if one believes their souls are damned for hell.

Rest here.

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