In the News, July 6, 2015

July 6, 2015

Today's religion and world affairs news from the United States and around the globe: Pope Francis travels to Ecuador, Istanbul rallies for China's Uighur community, and Muslims petition for female Qur'an reciters.
BERKLEY CENTER IN THE NEWS
Liberated by Grace
by E.J. Dionne, Jr.
Washington Post op-ed
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-african-american-church-as-religious-oasis/2015/07/05/98c7b834-2114-11e5-84d5-eb37ee8eaa61_story.html?hpid=z3
The African American church tradition teaches that Christianity’s message resonates far beyond the boundaries of any racial or ethnic community, yet also shows that particular groups of Christians give it their own meaning. The idea that all are divinely endowed with equal dignity is a near-universal concept among Christians. But (…) an insistence on “the dignity and humanity of people in the sight of God” has exceptional power to those who have suffered under slavery and segregation.  

AROUND THE WORLD
Pope Francis Lands in Ecuador to Begin South America Trip
by William Neuman
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/world/americas/francis-hailed-as-pope-of-the-people-arrives-in-ecuador-on-3-nation-tour.html?hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
Francis comes to Ecuador shortly after releasing a landmark encyclical on the environment. (…) He is expected to return to those themes in Ecuador, a country of great biological and environmental diversity, with the Amazon rain forest, the Andes Mountains and the Galápagos Islands. It is also a place that is highly sensitive to the conflicts between economic growth and environmental protection.  

Sunnis And Shi'ites Pray Together For Unity After Bombing
Huffington Post Religion/Reuters
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/03/sunnis-shiites-unity_n_7721678.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Hundreds of Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims prayed for national unity at Kuwait's grand mosque on Friday, vowing to block any attempt to stir sectarian division a week after an Islamic State staged the country's dealiest militant attack.  

Israeli Cabinet Rejects Measure to Ease Jewish Conversions
by Isabel Kershner
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/06/world/middleeast/israeli-cabinet-rejects-measure-to-ease-conversions.html?ref=world
The initiative was supposed to ease the path to conversion for tens of thousands of Israelis, many of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their descendants who qualified for Israeli citizenship because of their Jewish ancestry or family connections, but are not considered Jewish under the strict interpretation of religious law. Conversion will now remain under the full control of the Chief Rabbinate, which is dominated by strictly Orthodox rabbis.  

Pope’s Social Message Puts Him on Tricky Terrain in South America
by Sara Schaefer Muñoz and Mercedes Alvaro
Wall Street Journal
http://www.wsj.com/articles/popes-social-message-puts-him-on-tricky-terrain-in-south-america-1436134007
In two years as leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis has accused multinational companies of stripping poor countries of natural resources, beatified a slain Salvadoran archbishop who is an icon of the Latin American left, and criticized unfettered capitalism for promoting “exclusion and inequality.” Those messages sound almost like a page out of the populist playbook of Latin America’s leftist leaders, including those in Ecuador and Bolivia, the first two stops on the Argentine pontiff’s weeklong tour of South America.  

The Buddhist and the Neuroscientist
by Kathy Gilsinan
Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/07/dalai-lama-neuroscience-compassion/397706/
In 1992, the neuroscientist Richard Davidson got a challenge from the Dalai Lama. (…) The Dalai Lama was interested in what the tools of modern neuroscience could reveal about the brains of people who spent years, in Davidson’s words, “cultivating well-being … cultivating qualities of the mind which promote a positive outlook.” The result was that, not long afterward, Davidson brought a series of Buddhist monks into his lab and strapped electrodes to their heads or treated them to a few hours in an MRI machine.  

Hundreds March in Istanbul in Support of Uighurs
Washington Post/Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/hundreds-march-in-istanbul-in-support-of-uighurs/2015/07/04/cec15e1c-2264-11e5-a135-935065bc30d0_story.html
Hundreds of people have marched in Istanbul to protest against China’s treatment of its minority Muslim Uighur community. (…) The protesters on Saturday carried flags representing the Uighurs’ homeland and called for a boycott of Chinese goods.  

DOMESTIC
Shalt or Shalt Not
by Erasmus Blog
Economist
http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/07/american-independence-and-ten-commandments
A decision last week by the Supreme Court of Oklahoma shocked religious conservatives and was welcomed by liberals, as well as by some Christians who are advocates of church-state separation. The court ordered the removal of a granite monument listing the ten commandments from the grounds of the state capitol. Its presence was held to violate the Oklahoma constitution's ban on state support for any particular religion or church, which reflects the spirit of the First Amendment and goes a bit further.  

At Ramadan, An Online Petition For Female Reciters
by Ken Chitwood
Huffington Post Religion/Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/03/ramadan-female-reciters_n_7690230.html?utm_hp_ref=religion
Many Muslims attempt to listen to the Quran in its entirety during the month of fasting, either by attending evening prayers called “tarawih,” or more frequently by listening to CDs, podcasts, and online software programs such as QuranExplorer.com. But searching for a recitation from a female “qariah” or reciter, Jerusha Lamptey, assistant professor of Islam and ministry at Union Theological Seminary, found none.             
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