Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

Chinese President Warns of “Overseas Infiltration Via Religious Means”

This AP story reports that proponents of religious freedom are fearful of an increase in religious persecution in China following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s comments at a Beijing conference where he warned against “overseas infiltrations via religious means.” Followers of various religions have already suffered numerous forms of persecution, including Muslims being banned from wearing veils and beards, imprisonment of Catholic clergy members, and the removal and destruction of Christian symbols.

Despite China’s history of religious persecution since the Communist takeover in 1949, the number of Christians in the country has continued to increase. The story reports that according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, China’s 111 million Christians make it the world’s third largest Christian country behind only the United States and Brazil.

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“Church and State Collide in Puerto Rico”

This article reports that Puerto Rico’s Secretary of the Treasury, Juan Zaragoza, announced that his agency will soon begin an audit of religious entities in an effort to identify non-profit organizations that are wrongfully avoiding payment of taxes. The investigation’s inclusion of religious organizations is part of the third phase of a pilot program that began last year with an audit of more than 40 non-profit organizations.

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Survey Finds a Majority Agree with the Little Sisters of the Poor’s Fight Against the HHS Mandate

On April 19, 2016, the Catholic News Agency reported on the results of a new Marist Poll survey relating to the Little Sisters of the Poor’s pending litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court. The article begins as follows:

A new survey says most Americans think the Obama administration’s federal contraception mandate is unfair to the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious groups defending themselves before the U.S. Supreme Court.

little sisters

About 53 percent of Americans said the process required by the government is “unfair,” while only 32 percent did not, according to a new Marist Poll commissioned by the Knights of Columbus.

The federal government has exempted many other organizations’ employee health care plans from a requirement to provide contraception and drugs that can produce abortions. But it has no exemption for the Little Sisters of the Poor, who help run houses to care for the elderly poor.

The full text of the article appears here.

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First Things Intellectual Retreat in Los Angeles – “The Search for Happiness”

Fordham University’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center will hold a conference entitled “2016: Tradition, Secularization, Fundamentalism” from Thursday, June 23rd through Saturday, June 25th.   The event’s description follows:

While the very meaning of the “secular” remains contested, Christians globally are self-identifying in different ways in relation to an imagined secularization, all the while discerning how to live as a tradition.  This intersection between tradition, secularization and fundamentalism is especially evident in both post-Communist Catholic/Orthodox countries and the American context, where fundamentalist-like responses have emerged against the perceived threat of the secular.

Additional information and the event schedule can be found here.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Cesarani, “Disraeli”

This month, the Yale University Press will release “Disraeli: The Novel Politician,” by David Cesarani (Royal Holloway, University of London).  The publisher’s description follows:

Lauded as a “great Jew,” excoriated by antisemites, and one of Britain’s most renowned prime ministers, Benjamin Disraeli has been widely celebrated for his role 45eea7288533ef9fcae4ba0676f7a9c2in Jewish history. But is the perception of him as a Jewish hero accurate? In what ways did he contribute to Jewish causes? In this groundbreaking, lucid investigation of Disraeli’s life and accomplishments, David Cesarani draws a new portrait of one of Europe’s leading nineteenth-century statesmen, a complicated, driven, opportunistic man.

While acknowledging that Disraeli never denied his Jewish lineage, boasted of Jewish achievements, and argued for Jewish civil rights while serving as MP, Cesarani challenges the assumption that Disraeli truly cared about Jewish issues. Instead, his driving personal ambition required him to confront his Jewishness at the same time as he acted opportunistically. By creating a myth of aristocratic Jewish origins for himself, and by arguing that Jews were a superior race, Disraeli boosted his own career but also contributed to the consolidation of some of the most fundamental stereotypes of modern antisemitism.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Pelham, “Holy Lands”

This month, Columbia Global Reports released “Holy Lands: Reviving Pluralism in the Middle East,” by Nicholas Pelham. The publisher’s description follows:

How did the world’s most tolerant region become the least harmonious place on the planet?

The headlines from the Middle East these days are bad, characterized by violence, 51ykklyeumlterror, and autocracy. Whatever hopes people may have for the region are being dashed over and over, in country after country. Nicolas Pelham, the veteran Middle East correspondent for The Economist, has witnessed much of the tragedy, but in Holy Lands he presents a strikingly original and startlingly optimistic argument.

The Middle East was notably more tolerant than Western Europe during the nineteenth century because the Ottoman Empire permitted a high degree of religious pluralism and self-determination within its vast borders. European powers broke up the empire and tried to turn it into a collection of secular nation-states—a spectacular failure. Rulers turned religion into a force for nationalism, and the result has been ever increasing sectarian violence. The only solution, Pelham argues, is to accept the Middle East for the deeply religious region it is, and try to revive its venerable tradition of pluralism.

Holy Lands is a work of vivid reportage—from Turkey and Iraq, Israel and Palestine, Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, Dubai and Jordan—that is animated by a big idea. It makes a region that is all too familiar from news reports feel fresh.

To hear more about this book from the author himself, click here to listen to a podcast from The Economist Radio.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Conference: The WeAreN2016 International Congress on Religious Freedom (April 28-30)

From Thursday, April 28th, through Saturday, April 30th, the WeAreN2016 International Congress on Religious Freedom will be taking place at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, NY.  The conference is sponsored by the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations and In Defense of Christians. Its theme is: “Defending religious freedom and other human rights: Stopping mass atrocities against Christians and other believers.” The event’s description follows:

onuChristians account for 80% of persecuted minorities worldwide. ISIS/Daesh is
deliberately inflicting horrific life conditions on them, together with Yazidis, and other vulnerable minorities in the Middle East, intending to bring about their physical destruction.

The European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the United States Congress and US Department of State, as well as religious leaders from various faith traditions, have called ISIS/Daesh’s actions against Christians and other minorities genocide.

Today we are dismayed to see how in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world many of our brothers and sisters are persecuted, tortured and killed for their faith in Jesus. This too needs to be denounced: in this third world war, waged peacemeal, which we are now experiencing, a form of genocide – I insist on the word – is taking place, and it must end (Pope Francis).

In this event, we will hear from experts, witnesses, and victims of the atrocities and exodus suffered by Christians and other minorities in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, and other countries.

Find more details, including the daily programs and featured speakers, here.

 

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Grem, “The Blessings of Business”

In May, Oxford University Press will release “The Blessings of Business: How Corporations Shaped Conservative Christianity” by Darren E. Grem (University of Mississippi). The publisher’s description follows:

The Book of Matthew cautions readers that “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” But for at least a century conservative American Protestants have been trying to prove that adage wrong. In The Blessings of Business, Darren E. Grem argues that while preachers, activists, and politicians have all helped spread the gospel, American evangelicalism owes its enduring strength in a large part to private enterprise.

Grem argues for a new history of American evangelicalism, demonstrating how its adherents strategically used corporate America–its leaders, businesses, money, ideas, and values–to advance their religious, cultural, and political movement. Beginning before the First World War, conservative evangelicals were able to use businessmen and business methods to retain and expand their public influence in a secularizing, diversifying, and liberalizing age. In the process they became beholden to pro-business stances on matters of theology, race, gender, taxation, trade, and the state, transforming evangelicalism itself into as much of an economic movement as a religious one.

The Blessings of Business tells the story of unlikely partnerships between well-known champions of the evangelical movement such as Billy Graham and largely forgotten businessmen like Herbert Taylor, J. Howard Pew, and R.G. LeTourneau. Grem also shows how evangelicals set up their own pro-business organizations and linked the quarterly and yearly growth of “Christian” businesses to their social, religious, and political aspirations. Fascinating and provocative, The Blessings of Business uncovers the strong ties that conservative Christians have forged between the Almighty and the almighty dollar.

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Ellingson, “To Care for Creation”

In June, the University of Chicago Press will release “To Care for Creation: The Emergence of the Religious Environmental Movement” by Stephen Ellingson (Hamilton College). The publisher’s description follows:

Controversial megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll proclaimed from a conference stage in 2013, “I know who made the environment and he’s coming back and going to burn it all up. So yes, I drive an SUV.” The comment, which Driscoll later explained away as a joke, highlights what has been a long history of religious anti-environmentalism. Given how firmly entrenched this sentiment has been, surprising inroads have been made by a new movement with few financial resources, which is deeply committed to promoting green religious traditions and creating a new environmental ethic.

To Care for Creation chronicles this movement and explains how it has emerged despite institutional and cultural barriers, as well as the hurdles posed by logic and practices that set religious environmental organizations apart from the secular movement. Ellingson takes a deep dive into the ways entrepreneurial activists tap into and improvise on a variety of theological, ethical, and symbolic traditions in order to issue a compelling call to arms that mobilizes religious audiences. Drawing on interviews with the leaders of more than sixty of these organizations, Ellingson deftly illustrates how activists borrow and rework resources from various traditions to create new meanings for religion, nature, and the religious person’s duty to the natural world.

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Around the Web This Week

Some interesting law and religion news stories from around the web this week: