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I’m a rather disinterested party in the whole intelligent design versus evolution debate so I don’t follow it as much as I should. But there is something so bizarre about the federal judge in Pennsylvania’s ruling yesterday, and attendant coverage, that I feel forced to comment. I think we could write on various aspects of this story for weeks to come, but here’s a start.
A few weeks ago a mini-scandal broke out surrounding Ridgeway Elementary School in Wisconsin. It seemed that some official with the school play had secularized the words to the beautiful “Silent Night” (or as we Lutherans call it: “Stille Nacht“) to “Cold in the Night.” Various groups got enraged and sent out press releases and television networks ate it up and ran breathless segments about the war on Christmas.
We’ve commented before on the caustic treatment that Scientology true believer Tom Cruise has received from media outlets. The Los Angeles Times, which has been reporting on Scientology for decades, ran a lengthy business pages look inside the Church of Scientology’s Gilman Hot Springs resort on Sunday. The package included 30 photos of the compound and focused on business and spiritual relationship of Tom Cruise and current church head David Miscavige, although the article also provides a bit of information about the religious beliefs of Scientologists:
A priest and six laymen at a Roman Catholic church in St. Louis have been excommunicated by Archbishop Raymond Burke and St. Louis Post-Dispatch religion writer Tim Townsend has been doing excellent coverage, even winning an award for one of his earlier stories.
Embryonic stem cell research pioneer Hwang Woo-suk had a really bad day yesterday. Dr. Hwang is the cloning superstar who was riding the express train to the Nobel Prize until a few weeks ago. He received Time magazine’s invention of the year award for his cloned puppy and earlier this month he won Scientific American‘s researcher of the year award.
The Washington Post carries some water today for Jim Wallis, an evangelical social activist. The story, by domestic economic policy reporter Jonathan Weisman and religion reporter Alan Cooperman, is about Christian approaches on Republican spending policies.
There has been some amazing coverage surrounding this morning’s execution of convicted murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams. The gang leader, who killed four people in two separate robberies in 1979, unsuccessfully tried to receive clemency from various courts and Gov. Schwarzennegger.
I’ve caught most of Showtime’s Sleeper Cell. The 10-hour miniseries follows an Al Qaeda terrorist group in Los Angeles and the FBI agent who infiltrates it.
Nearly four out of five folks in this country self-identify as Christian. And (to understate widly) there are very few political issues that 80 percent of the country agree on. The war in Iraq certainly is not one of them. Many of the soldiers fighting the war are Christian. Many of the people opposing the war are Christian. Christian lawmakers voted for the war. Some Christian lawmakers voted against the war. One Christian voted for the war before he voted against it.
