Today's religion and world affairs news from the United States and around the globe: religious rivalry, President Obama discusses poverty at an evangelical-Catholic summit, and Muslim refugees in Southeast Asia.
BERKLEY CENTER IN THE NEWS
East Ukraine War Puts In Question Peace In Whole Europe
Hromadske video
https://youtu.be/dc6PbxGUsGs?list=PLPnX89fQLdsnTsiDOpYtxvMJZobCjqBC
“Ukraine has four national churches claiming to be the national church of Ukraine - it has adapted a model of religious pluralism like the United States and this is the positive aspect of religion in Ukraine,” José Casanova, professor of sociology at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Berkley Center, told Hromadske.
GEORGETOWN IN THE NEWS
Pope Francis' Poverty Agenda Draws President Obama
by Elizabeth Dias
Time
http://time.com/3854208/pope-francis-barack-obama-poverty/
Organized by Georgetown’s Initiative of Catholic Social Thought and Public Life and the National Association of Evangelicals, the summit is a “direct response” to Pope Francis’ “challenge to place the lives and dignity of the poor at the center of religious and public life,” according to John Carr, who heads the Georgetown Initiative.
AROUND THE WORLD
Muslims Flee to Malaysia and Indonesia by the Hundreds
by Thomas Fuller
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/world/asia/more-than-1000-refugees-land-on-malaysian-resort-island...
The Malaysian and Indonesian authorities say the refugees are a mix of Bangladeshis and ethnic Rohingya, a persecuted and stateless Muslim ethnic minority that inhabits western Myanmar and eastern Bangladesh.
The Violent Narrative of Religious Rivalry
by Mike Gerson
Washington Post op-ed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-radical-necessity-of-loving-thy-neighbor/2015/05/11/70db5...
Modern technology has made the job of ideological containment much harder by creating a forum for endless provocation and offense taking, not to mention radicalization and recruitment. The alternative, however, is not to demand that religious people become less religious — a hopeless task when much of the world will become less secular in the 21st century. What is needed is “theological work,” according to the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks.
Secularist Blogger Hacked to Death in Bangladesh, Third Victim this Year
Reuters Faith World
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2015/05/12/secularist-blogger-hacked-to-death-in-bangladesh-thir...
Ananta Bijoy Das, a blogger who advocated secularism, was attacked by four masked assailants in the northeastern district of Sylhet on Tuesday morning.
Church and State in Greece: Relics of Glory
Economist
http://econ.st/1Fb5wFu
The "loan" of Saint Barbara marks an unusually happy moment in relations between the Roman Catholic church and the Orthodox church of Greece, which has never quite forgiven the Christian West for the storming of Constantinople by Western soldiers in 1204. The welcome ceremony last weekend provided confirmation that Greece's leftist government, whose leader Alexis Tsipras is a professed atheist, does not plan to proceed quickly with its declared aim of severing the country's close ties between church and state.
East Ukraine War Puts In Question Peace In Whole Europe
Hromadske video
https://youtu.be/dc6PbxGUsGs?list=PLPnX89fQLdsnTsiDOpYtxvMJZobCjqBC
“Ukraine has four national churches claiming to be the national church of Ukraine - it has adapted a model of religious pluralism like the United States and this is the positive aspect of religion in Ukraine,” José Casanova, professor of sociology at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Berkley Center, told Hromadske.
GEORGETOWN IN THE NEWS
Pope Francis' Poverty Agenda Draws President Obama
by Elizabeth Dias
Time
http://time.com/3854208/pope-francis-barack-obama-poverty/
Organized by Georgetown’s Initiative of Catholic Social Thought and Public Life and the National Association of Evangelicals, the summit is a “direct response” to Pope Francis’ “challenge to place the lives and dignity of the poor at the center of religious and public life,” according to John Carr, who heads the Georgetown Initiative.
AROUND THE WORLD
Muslims Flee to Malaysia and Indonesia by the Hundreds
by Thomas Fuller
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/world/asia/more-than-1000-refugees-land-on-malaysian-resort-island...
The Malaysian and Indonesian authorities say the refugees are a mix of Bangladeshis and ethnic Rohingya, a persecuted and stateless Muslim ethnic minority that inhabits western Myanmar and eastern Bangladesh.
The Violent Narrative of Religious Rivalry
by Mike Gerson
Washington Post op-ed
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-radical-necessity-of-loving-thy-neighbor/2015/05/11/70db5...
Modern technology has made the job of ideological containment much harder by creating a forum for endless provocation and offense taking, not to mention radicalization and recruitment. The alternative, however, is not to demand that religious people become less religious — a hopeless task when much of the world will become less secular in the 21st century. What is needed is “theological work,” according to the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks.
Secularist Blogger Hacked to Death in Bangladesh, Third Victim this Year
Reuters Faith World
http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2015/05/12/secularist-blogger-hacked-to-death-in-bangladesh-thir...
Ananta Bijoy Das, a blogger who advocated secularism, was attacked by four masked assailants in the northeastern district of Sylhet on Tuesday morning.
Church and State in Greece: Relics of Glory
Economist
http://econ.st/1Fb5wFu
The "loan" of Saint Barbara marks an unusually happy moment in relations between the Roman Catholic church and the Orthodox church of Greece, which has never quite forgiven the Christian West for the storming of Constantinople by Western soldiers in 1204. The welcome ceremony last weekend provided confirmation that Greece's leftist government, whose leader Alexis Tsipras is a professed atheist, does not plan to proceed quickly with its declared aim of severing the country's close ties between church and state.
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