Hester Prynne at the stocks, via Wikipedia.
Ratings from “The Bible” finale rival “The Walking Dead.” Why does that sound weird?
The writers behind the Boston Globe’s landmark sex abuse coverage a decade ago will get to find out if their story can do as well as “The Bible” now that Spielberg’s DreamWorks Studios has joined in acquiring film rights to the saga.
It’s unlikely Cardinal Law will return to play himself.
Are the U.S. bishops adopting a new policy or just a new tone toward gays and lesbians? Or is rhetoric as important as policy?
The Student Government Association at Johns Hopkins University has denied official club status to a group that opposes abortion. As one SGA member reportedly said:
“We have the right to protect our students from things that are uncomfortable. Why should people have to defend their beliefs on their way to class?”
Exactly. College is for partying, not thinking. Doh!
Tennessee state legislators are moving to kill a voucher program aimed at helping religious schools now that they realized Islam is also a religion. Which has schools. And could qualify for vouchers.
Lego says its version of Jabba the Hut’s palace is NOT anti-Muslim.
Some North Carolina legislators want the state to have an official religion. Guess which religion?
In South Carolina, Mark Sanford’s trail to redemption keeps getting clearer. Now just Colbert’s sister in his way…
Speaking of Sanford et al, the Dish (Sully is taking a well-deserved vacation) points us to a rockin’ Mark Oppenheimer column in which he says that social conservatives should be targeting the divorced for reprobation, not gays – they’re just the johnny-and-janey-come-latelys to the marriage revolution:
“(Y)ou have to actually try to shame straight divorcés more than you are trying to shame gay people for wanting to marry, because the straights started it … If you aren’t horrified by Rush Limbaugh being married four times—if you didn’t see Ronald Reagan as a less fit leader because of his divorce—then you simply have to shut the hell up about gay people marrying. You can’t ethically go after the marginalized people who try to eat the fruits of a revolution. You have to go after the revolutionaries.”
Discuss.
Think apocalyptic end-timers exist only among the religious set? Numbers-crunching scientists say the data is in, and we are closer to the end than to the beginning … Adam Frank reports at NPR.
Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert is winning this Month’s Perverse Casuistry Award for an argument that links gun control laws limiting magazine capacity to gay marriage and bestiality:
“There is no clear place to draw the line once you eliminate the traditional marriage and it’s the same once you start putting limits on what guns can be used, then it’s just really easy to have laws that make them all illegal.”
(No, it doesn’t help to read it twice. I tried. I tried.)
The news for evangelicals in the Mexican state of Chiapas is good, finally.
Duke McCall, a “giant” among Southern Baptists, has died at 98.
Mormons are having some beardage issues, and Peggy Fletcher Stack is all over the ironies.
Peggy is also tracking the online push to have Mormon women ordained as priests. Beards not an issue there.
Secular Britain does have a Christian success story – and The Independent is on the case.
Finally, Erasmus, the Economist’s religion blogger, was inspired by our own Mark Silk’s post on atheists shoes to look more closely at the various traditions on faith and footwear. It’s a good read.
Basta. Time for more coffee. Pass this roundup around to friends and foes and others so everyone can join in the fun and edification. Or at least the fun.
David Gibson
7 Comments
Wednesday’s Religion News Roundup: Shaming the Divorced * Guns and Gays * Faith and Footwear - Religion News Service | THINKING PRESBYTERIAN | Scoop.it
[...] Forget the gays: Shame the divorced for ruining marriage. A pro-life student group at Johns Hopkins is denied club status because it would make students think about stuff. And North Carolina may get an official religion. [...]
Kevan Scott
A few comments: 1. Even as a staunch Progressive I support the J. H. students wanting to have a pro-life group. This is college not high school and I also believe in freedom so as long as they’re not about hurting others or in any way being destructive then I say let them do it. 2. It seems as if some in the South want to do everything in their power to secede. What SC legislators are wanting to do by having a “official” religion is very unconstititional and they darn well know it. More grandstanding by politicians to show how “Christian” they are. Of course if you or I happen to not be Christian then too bad for by God were going to force our religion down your throat one way or another. Finally, the documentary The Bible” and The Walking Dead is not so strange. for the doc itself was the walking dead of docs with all it’s inaccuracies and portraying Satan to look like Obama and black was just plain offensive to myself and others. But those hyper-religious types have hated Obama from day 1 and the only clear reason is that he is black. Some prejudices will just never die speaking of the walking dead.
Jon Cleland Host
Reporting should include relevant details. For instance, the Bible series only did well among senior citizens. Of the 12 million Bible viewers, only 3.5 million – under a third- were under 50. Compare that to the Walking Dead, where the vast majority (8.1 million) were under 50. Is it news that there is little interest in the Bible among parents and young adults today, and that most of the interest in the Bible is confined to senior citizens? I don’t think that’s all that surprising or important – unless you run a nursing home, I guess.
Gerry Price
Gee, isn’t it funny that North Carolina and Tennessee pols are more than happy to promote Christianity. Funny how the Tennesseans run screaming when they found state law would benefit one of the other religions of The Book.
Old Dude
Liberals have destroyed marriage. It was already terminal anyway. Feminism was big factor (that’s liberal right?) in killing marriage. But the gay-marriage thing did it in. It is merely a paid fee form at the county recorder’s office now. It has no meaning (but divorce lawyers can still take every penny you own and hang on like a leech). So let the gays marry and let the lawyers have them. Being “legally” married now is oxymoron (since the “law” just rendered it a religious rite.). End of marriage
Richard Minsky
This is one of the best Roundups, thought-provoking and well written.
Mick Lee
Well, maybe….just maybe…perhaps. Not promising anything right now…mind you…but this could be a place to start talking.
Oh, no. Waiting a minute! We can begin talking once we have one stipulation in place: that is, with the adaptation of gay marriage, you promise me it is this point and no further. No more tinkering with the law to allow even more innovations in marriage. Where’s the dotted line we can sign? Whose hand do we shake?
Failing that, maybe we could agree on a quite different stipulation in its place. The subsequent fallout from the “liberalization” of divorce and new bells and whistles in heterosexual relations has been a crippling disaster for many if not most children. If we agree to gay marriage, can we promise each other that no additional children will be harmed above the current crop we rack up each year already? One could say that it can’t possibly get any worse and, short of throwing them all into a war zone, I’d be inclined to agree. But do we know that?
It would be great if with the adoption of gay marriage the numbers of suffering children would decrease. But just for giggles, let’s ask ourselves a question. Let’s says we knew—heaven only knows how—but if we knew that more children would end up suffering in misery, would justice still demand that marriage for gays go forward anyway?