News
Religion plays role in year’s top news I
n 2012, faith was a persistent theme in the presidential race, and moral and ethical questions surrounded budget debates and mass killings: • Gun violence became a new “pro- life” issue following shootings in Aurora, Colo.; Oak Creek, Wis.; and Newtown, Conn. • One in 5 Americans (19 percent) now claim no religious affiliation, up from 6 percent in 1990. • Nuns on a bus found themselves facing a Vatican crackdown and accusations that the umbrella group of most U.S. sisters was embracing “radical feminist themes” and not working strongly enough against abortion and same-sex marriage. • Republican Mitt Romney made history as the first Mormon to win a major party’s presidential nomination. • Voters in Washington, Maryland and Maine approved gay marriage; Minnesota voters rejected a consti- tutional amendment to ban it. North
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of Jerusalem, reported The Times of Israel. The relics include those from a ritual building from the time of the First Temple and 2,750-year- old pottery figurines of men and horses, offering evidence of a ritual cult, according to the Dec. 27 report. King Solomon built Jerusalem’s First Temple around the 10th century, B.C. The find is considered a rarity because Judaism abolished many ritual sites so the temple in Jerusalem could consolidate its power, accord- ing to a separate report in the Jerusa- lem Post.
Western Wall rules reviewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Jewish Agency President Natan Sharansky to review
10 The Lutheran •
www.thelutheran.org
Carolina approved a constitutional ban while President Barack Obama endorsed same-sex marriage. • In the name of religious freedom, an unexpected entrant into the 2012 campaign was a fierce debate over birth control, centered around Roman Catholic and evangelical resistance to the Obama adminis- tration’s mandate for free employee coverage of contraception. • As Roman Catholics marked the 10th anniversary of the clergy sex abuse scandal that erupted in Bos- ton, the U.S. Conference of Catho- lic Bishops was confronted with two landmark criminal convictions. • New “firsts” in America’s reli- gious tapestry—neither major party ticket included a white Protestant, the Southern Baptist Convention elected its first black president, and a Buddhist was elected to the Senate and a Hindu to the House.
Religion News Service
and suggest ways to make the West- ern Wall and its rituals more accom- modating to all Jews, according to The New York Times. The move comes after 20 years of civil disobe- dience by “Women of the Wall,” a group that protests rules, laws and a 2003 Israeli Supreme Court ruling that prohibit women from carrying a Torah or wearing prayer shawls at the wall, the report said.
Pray March 1 World Day of Prayer 2013, an ecu- menical movement of women from 170 countries and regions, lifts up prayer and action the first Friday of March. The day (this year March 1) is centered on the idea that prayer and action go together. The 2013 theme, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” was selected by Christian women in France to focus on immi- gration. Offerings collected during the 2013 services will support minis- tries for women in Malaysia and the overall work of World Day of Prayer. For more, call 888-937-8720 or visit
www.wdp-usa.org.
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Taking a walk Caitlin Jarvis (left), Omar Mixco and Ron Warner re-enact walking on the
road to Emmaus during a Nov. 16-17 “Glocal” mission gathering at Central City Lutheran Mission in San Bernardino, Calif. Attendees shared meals with and listened to presentations from people who were homeless, undocu- mented or living with HIV. ELCA Global Mission sponsors Glocal events nationwide. Learn more at
www.elca.org/gme.
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