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Jonathan Rauch buries this striking fact in a parenthetical remark halfway into his latest National Journal column: “At least 22 people, including Rushdie’s Japanese translator, were killed as a consequence of the Rushdie affair.”
Strange. A decade or so ago, this story about the World Council of Churches and Israel would have been a page one headline — for sure. Now, Religion News Service seems to have it almost all to itself. Here is some of the key info: “The World Council of Churches has urged its 347 member denominations to give “serious consideration” to pulling investments out of Israel in protest of what it sees as mistreatment of Palestinians. . . . Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, interfaith director for the Anti-Defamation League, dismissed the WCC as “irrelevant” but was nonetheless concerned that the divestment campaign has taken on a life of its own.” Wow. Is it a story that this is not a major story? Can the WCC still make news?
One of the most damning film portrayals of media hordes came years ago in Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff, which repeatedly made the sound of whirring cameras sound like so many locusts. Those scenes came to mind when I saw this detail in the Los Angeles Times‘ coverage of the scene at Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita, which Dennis Rader, the accused BTK serial killer, has attended for more than 30 years:
The latest issue of Seattle’s The Stranger uses this year’s NARAL Chocolate for Choice fundraiser — an “evening of utter decadence . . . supporting a woman’s right to choose” — to look at the shifting politics of abortion, from the perspective of the left and the Democratic Party.
Let’s set the wayback machine to last summer, when one of the hottest stories linked to politics and religion was the state of Sen. John Kerry’s soul or, at the very least, his ability to receive Holy Communion in mainstream Roman Catholic parishes.
Joseph Bottum (alternately known as J. Bottum, or just Jody to friends and acquaintances) has a theatricality about him and so I expected that, in leaving the post of books and arts editor at The Weekly Standard to become editor of First Things, he would not go quietly. That expectation turns out to have been right on the money, but I should have doubled down on the bet.
Anglican-beat reporters, please repeat after me once again: The Africans pray, the Americans pay and the British write the resolutions.
Another day, another stay in the Terri Schiavo case. On Wednesday, Judge George Greer extended the stay on Michael Schiavo’s plans to remove the tubes that deliver food and water to his brain-damaged wife. It was the second time this week that Terri was given a reprieve.
No obituary this week can do full justice to Dr. Gene Scott, the most contrarian Christian ever to have his own TV show. His hometown papers, the Los Angeles Times and the Pasadena Star-News, cover the wildest highlights.
