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It seems like over the last 10 years or so, I’ve read roughly eleventy-bajillion trend pieces about the confluence of environmentalism and religion. Most of these pieces have been fairly uncritical about or even cheerleading this commingling. So I wasn’t terribly enthused to see this New York Times story, “Pastors in Northwest Find Focus in ‘Green.’”
I suppose all good things must come to an end eventually but, after 20 years, the final New York Times‘ Beliefs column was printed on New Year’s Day. Terry, as usual, had some vital things to say about this development on the Godbeat — so go read his post below already if you haven’t done so now. Still, a major development has room for more than one us here at GR to comment on, even if Tmatt is a tough act to follow.
Over the weekend, I discussed a New York Times story about a possible rift between the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Catholic Health Association (CHA) — which represents the many Catholic hospitals in the country — over health care reform legislation. The Times reported the following: “In an apparent split with Roman Catholic bishops over the abortion-financing provisions of the proposed health care overhaul, the nation’s Catholic hospitals have signaled that they back the Senate’s compromise on the issue, raising hopes of breaking an impasse in Congress and stirring controversy within the church.”
The Senate’s passage of health care reform legislation was a major victory, though there’s a big difference between winning a battle and winning the war. There’s no solid evidence as of yet that the House is going to accept the Senate’s legislation as it’s written. The President appears to concede the issue may not be resolved into February.
Ah, yes, fewer than two shopping days 48 hours left to fire your salvo in the 2009 Christmas wars! To that end, The New York Times has a colorful little report on an order to remove seasonal religious symbols displayed in a public building and California. Only this time, there was no cross, creche or menorah:
NEWSFLASH: Sometimes movies deal with religion and, sometimes, lots and lots of Americans buy tickets to see them.
The Washington Post foreign service — which thankfully still exists –Â sent out this story on Thursday: “New Delhi’s filth continues to choke once-sacred Yamuna River.” It’s a very interesting and well-timed piece in light of all the talk this week at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen about getting better environmental controls in rapidly industrializing countries, particularly in China and India. The story does an excellent job illustrating the environmental problems and challenges in contemporary India. Can’t fault it there:
It’s a cliche for a reason — sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Suffice to say, I quickly understood what this Washington Post story was about before I even read it thanks to the picture included with the story (and reproduced here to the right). It’s about a poster produced by the National Association of Latino Elected Officials (NALEO) and distributed to some 7,000 churches in an effort to get Hispanics to increase participation. As you can see, the poster has stirred a bit of controversy.
