Bob Abernethy, Host of PBS’ Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

Co-editor (with William Bole) of The Life of Meaning: Reflections on Faith, Doubt and Repairing the World

Bob Abernethy is eloquent on a wide range of topics in the world of religion, and religious broadcasting.  He says that the “intelligentsia” who consigned religion to the scrap heap of history a couple decades ago were talking mainly about Europe, not the United States.  The U.S. history of religious freedom, he says, has provided a healthy climate for religious beliefs of all sorts to flourish.

When he had the idea for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, he found a positive reception at WNET in New York, and funding through the Lilly Endowment.  The ten years of that enterprise have clearly provided him with an opportunity he has cherished, talking to people who have “wrestled with all the big questions” in life.

Many of those people are included in his new book, which is really a “smorgasbord” of essays, or transcripts of interviews from guests on his television show.   He talks about some of them: Martin Marty and his “wintry spirituality,” Anne Lamont who does not like to think “thinky thoughts,” Bp. Desmond Tutu who likens God to the warmth of a fire on a cold day, and Phyllis Tickle with her practice of the monastic hours of prayer in rural Tennessee.   

September 11 made the coverage of Islam an urgent imperative, but it also meant wrestling with the age-old “problem of evil:” how could a powerful and loving God let something like this happen?  He says that the recent massacre at Blackburg, VA is another instance of the same thing.  He recalls a rabbi in the book who wrestled with the Holocaust, saying that “God was there, suffering too;” and God looks to us to do something about evil in the world.

One chapter in the book deals with the “spiritual but not religious.” Abernethy says people use that designation because they have been hurt by religious institutions, or because they don’t want anyone telling them what their theology should be.  Some people even blend faith traditions, but he quotes a Baptist minister who told him once that what is important on a show like his is “respecting the religious impulse.”

He advocates getting “beyond tolerance” in our religiously diverse society, looking at differences, understanding them, and respecting them.

One of his favorite people in the book is the late Rev. William Sloan Coffin.  Abernethy knew him as an anti-war, anti-draft activist, but when he interviewed him, he discovered “how spiritual he was.”

All in all, he is intrigued by the people he has interviewed…they are deep thinkers, eloquent and “a lot of fun.”

Clergy Lobby for Gay and Lesbian Rights

Rev. Nancy Wilson, Moderator of the Metropolitan Community Church

Rabbi Denise Eger, founding rabbi of a reform synagogue, Congregation Beth Kol Ami in West Hollywood, CA

Bishop Carlton D. Pearson, Senior Pastor of a Pentecostal Church, New Dimensions Worship Center in Tulsa, OK

These clergy are just three of many, lobbying for passage of an amendment to the Hate Crimes Law that would name violent acts against sexual minorities as “hate crimes,” and amendments to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and would make it illegal to fire someone from a job for being GLBT. 

The most unusual of the three guests was Bishop Pearson.  Pentecostals do not usually lobby for gay/lesbian rights.  But Bp. Pearson says that Pentecostals “speak in tongues” – the tongues of other lands and cultures, and that’s what he is doing.  He notes that there are a lot of gays and lesbians in the Pentecostal tradition, but there’s a huge closet, since most don’t want to admit it.

Rabbi Eger says that trying to keep people silent about their orientation prevents them from recognizing fully who they are.  All three noted that the Scripture passages from Leviticus and Paul, usually used against the gay/lesbian community, have diverse interpretations, and that the Greek word for “homosexual” is of recent origin, and often misapplied in Scripture passages.

They are optimistic about passage of both pieces of legislation, especially the Hate Crimes Law.

Humanists celebrate a “Day of Reason”

Fred Edwards, Director of Communications, American Humanist Association

The “Day of Reason,” launched in 2002, is a counterpoint to the National “Day of Prayer” declared by the President every year.  It celebrates, as the name implies, human reason and the scientific method.  Humanists celebrate it in a variety of ways, including blood drives, because they understand the need to express human compassion as a central part of their ethic.

Edwards says that Humanists work with many liberal religious people on shared causes, and they recognize that these people see faith and reason as compatible.  But Humanists per se see the two as philosophically incompatible.  Humanism, Edwards says, is a growing philosophical tradition. 

A Film on the Backlash Against Sikh Americans After 9-11

Joanna Corman, reporter, Religion News Service   

Joanna Corman tells the story of Valarie Kaur, a young Sikh American who produced a film, together with Sharat Raju, entitled Divided We Fall: Americans in the Aftermath.  It documents the backlash against Muslims, Sikhs, Arabs, etc. after 9-11, including the murder of a Sikh American (mistaken for a Muslim) only four days after 9-11.  But it also describes another America: that which respects diversity and pluralism.

Joanna talks about how the making of the film led Valarie to respect her own Sikh faith more deeply, and express it in new and diverse ways.  The film is playing at colleges and film festivals around the country.