Today's religion and world affairs news from the United States and around the globe: the legacy of Vatican II, Lebanese Christians, religion in Cuba, Islam in Egypt and the United States, and religious freedom in Tibet.
VATICAN II CONFERENCE
Let's Get Ecclesiological
by Robert Mickens
Global Pulse
http://www.globalpulsemagazine.com/news/lets-get-ecclesiological/1320
Church conferences can sometimes feel like doing penance, especially when they consist of listening passively to a number of speakers that, in seemingly endless succession, read one lengthy (and often boring) paper after another. (...) Not so with the international conferences organized by the Ecclesiological Investigation (EI) Network.
AROUND THE WORLD
Power Vacuum in Lebanon Highlights Threat to Christians
Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/55419664-05fa-11e5-b676-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3bqXH7F2p
Lebanon is the one country in the Middle East with a Christian president, and it has not had one for a year. This matters: for the cohesion of a fragile state, and because it further erodes the tenuous position of Christians in the Levant, caught in the sectarian crossfire of the vicious struggle between Sunni jihadis and an Iran-backed Shia axis from Baghdad to Beirut.
As Ideology Fades in Cuba, Spirituality and Popes Intervene
by Nick Miroff
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/as-ideology-fades-in-cuba-spirituality-and-popes-intervene/2015/06/01/c337174a-04b8-11e5-93f4-f24d4af7f97d_story.html
Cuba was never a deeply pious country in the cloth of some other Latin American nations. But the Catholic Church and other denominations have come a long way from the 1960s and ’70s, when Fidel Castro’s revolution sent religious believers to labor camps and enshrined atheism in the constitution. Today, Christmas and Good Friday are national holidays once more. Churchgoers no longer face official discrimination. For the first time in five decades, the government has given the church permission to build a cathedral. And Catholic authorities face increasing competition from fast-growing evangelical denominations.
Sisi's Islam
by Emily Crane and Nicholas Linn
Foreign Policy
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/02/sisis-islam-egypt-muslim-brotherhood-arab-spring/
Egypt’s president is taking control of the country's mosques — and risks driving his enemies underground.
China's Panchen Lama Pledges His Patriotism in a Sensitive Year
by Ben Blanchard
Reuters FaithWorld
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2015/06/02/chinas-panchen-lama-pledges-his-patriotism-in-a-sensitive-year/
Gyaltsen Norbu was selected as a boy by officially atheist Beijing in 1995 as the 11th Panchen Lama in China’s drive to win the hearts and minds of Tibetans. The Dalai Lama, had announced his own choice of a six-year-old boy, who was taken away by authorities and has since vanished from public view. This year not only marks the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of the six-year-old boy but also the 80th birthday of the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since fleeing Tibet in 1959 following an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.
DOMESTIC
US Top Court Rules for Muslim Woman Denied Job over Head Scarf
Reuters FaithWorld
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2015/06/01/u-s-top-court-rules-for-muslim-woman-denied-job-over-head-scarf/
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Muslim woman who sued after being denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch Co clothing store in Oklahoma because she wore a head scarf for religious reasons. On an 8-1 vote in an important religious rights case, the court handed a victory to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that sued the company on behalf of Samantha Elauf. She was denied a sales job in 2008 at an Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa when she was 17.
related | The Limits of Religious Freedom
by David Graham
Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-limits-of-religious-freedom/394592/
Let's Get Ecclesiological
by Robert Mickens
Global Pulse
http://www.globalpulsemagazine.com/news/lets-get-ecclesiological/1320
Church conferences can sometimes feel like doing penance, especially when they consist of listening passively to a number of speakers that, in seemingly endless succession, read one lengthy (and often boring) paper after another. (...) Not so with the international conferences organized by the Ecclesiological Investigation (EI) Network.
AROUND THE WORLD
Power Vacuum in Lebanon Highlights Threat to Christians
Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/55419664-05fa-11e5-b676-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3bqXH7F2p
Lebanon is the one country in the Middle East with a Christian president, and it has not had one for a year. This matters: for the cohesion of a fragile state, and because it further erodes the tenuous position of Christians in the Levant, caught in the sectarian crossfire of the vicious struggle between Sunni jihadis and an Iran-backed Shia axis from Baghdad to Beirut.
As Ideology Fades in Cuba, Spirituality and Popes Intervene
by Nick Miroff
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/as-ideology-fades-in-cuba-spirituality-and-popes-intervene/2015/06/01/c337174a-04b8-11e5-93f4-f24d4af7f97d_story.html
Cuba was never a deeply pious country in the cloth of some other Latin American nations. But the Catholic Church and other denominations have come a long way from the 1960s and ’70s, when Fidel Castro’s revolution sent religious believers to labor camps and enshrined atheism in the constitution. Today, Christmas and Good Friday are national holidays once more. Churchgoers no longer face official discrimination. For the first time in five decades, the government has given the church permission to build a cathedral. And Catholic authorities face increasing competition from fast-growing evangelical denominations.
Sisi's Islam
by Emily Crane and Nicholas Linn
Foreign Policy
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/02/sisis-islam-egypt-muslim-brotherhood-arab-spring/
Egypt’s president is taking control of the country's mosques — and risks driving his enemies underground.
China's Panchen Lama Pledges His Patriotism in a Sensitive Year
by Ben Blanchard
Reuters FaithWorld
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2015/06/02/chinas-panchen-lama-pledges-his-patriotism-in-a-sensitive-year/
Gyaltsen Norbu was selected as a boy by officially atheist Beijing in 1995 as the 11th Panchen Lama in China’s drive to win the hearts and minds of Tibetans. The Dalai Lama, had announced his own choice of a six-year-old boy, who was taken away by authorities and has since vanished from public view. This year not only marks the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of the six-year-old boy but also the 80th birthday of the Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in India since fleeing Tibet in 1959 following an abortive uprising against Chinese rule.
DOMESTIC
US Top Court Rules for Muslim Woman Denied Job over Head Scarf
Reuters FaithWorld
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2015/06/01/u-s-top-court-rules-for-muslim-woman-denied-job-over-head-scarf/
The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Muslim woman who sued after being denied a job at an Abercrombie & Fitch Co clothing store in Oklahoma because she wore a head scarf for religious reasons. On an 8-1 vote in an important religious rights case, the court handed a victory to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), a federal agency that sued the company on behalf of Samantha Elauf. She was denied a sales job in 2008 at an Abercrombie Kids store in Tulsa when she was 17.
related | The Limits of Religious Freedom
by David Graham
Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/the-limits-of-religious-freedom/394592/
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