Following is a brief outline of the stories Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly will be covering this week. Every Friday evening, the transcript and streaming video of each report will available on our Web site . Please note that in case of breaking news, stories may be subject to change.
FEATURED SEGMENTS
Spiritual Voices on the Obama Administration
President-elect Barack Obama will be sworn into office on January 20. Beyond questions of specific policy proposals, how do people of faith feel about the position and opportunity of the Obama era?
Morehouse College president Dr. Robert Franklin, Rabbi Marc Gopin, director for George Mason University's Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, and award-winning author Alice McDermott join host Bob Abernethy for a studio discussion focusing on the views of the faith community towards America's 44th president and his new administration.
MLK's Dream and Obama
As Americans prepare to honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the day before the historic presidential inauguration, connections between Barack Obama and the slain civil rights leader are inevitable. For many across racial and religious lines, Obama's inauguration is seen as one key fulfillment of Dr. King's dream, offering hope to people of every creed and color from all walks of life.
Kim Lawton explores how the election of the nation's first black president is igniting a new sense of optimism across the country and the promise of fulfilling Dr. King's vision to bring economic and racial justice, unity and peace to all Americans. According to Howard Divinity School professor Harold Dean Trulear, who serves as president of GLOBE Community Ministries, a faith-based group that offers support to youth programs, Obama's election will have a profound impact on coming generations: “They have the sense that they too can become president . . . It's not just that he's an African American, but he's also common . . . Those kinds of things I think give my generation a lot of hope.”
Gustav Niebuhr on Interfaith Understanding
Barack Obama stated that one of his early goals as president is to make a speech somewhere in the Islamic world in the hope of establishing a greater understanding between the U.S. and Muslims. Already, a great amount of interfaith dialogue has taken place between religious leaders and scholars in an effort to identify their differences and to work together in spite of them. And now, in a new book entitled “Beyond Tolerance,”
Bob Abernethy talks with Prof. Niebuhr about the importance of promoting Christian-Muslim understanding, especially in the aftermath of 9-11. “It's stereotypes that threaten us often in the world. It's belief that those people over there are out to get us,” Prof. Niebuhr observes. “That's what we need to get away from . . . I think that people across religious boundaries, indeed across national boundaries too, owe it to themselves to attempt to find the common humanity in each other — owe it to themselves to find ways of conversing and to work together.”
ONLY ONLINE
Is Gaza a Just War?
Read Web-only commentary and analysis.
Cardinal Pio Laghi, 1922 - 2009
Vatican diplomat Cardinal Pio Laghi died on January 10 in
Rabbi Alan Lew, 1943 - 2009
San Francisco spiritual leader Rabbi Alan Lew, known for fostering Jewish meditation pratices and for bridging the teachings and traditions of Judaism and Buddhism, died on January 13. Revisit our 2006 story about him.
Worshipping Walt
Was poet Walt Whitman a religious prophet with a sacred purpose? Read a Web-exclusive review of the book “Worshipping Walt: The Whitman Disciples.”
Martin Luther King Day
As the nation prepares to mark what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.'s 80th birthday, revisit renowned jazz drummer Roy Haynes's 2004 tribute to him.
WHAT'S AHEAD
January 23: “End of Life Dilemmas" — Betty Rollin explores the debate over the morality and cost of aggressive medical treatment for the elderly suffering from Alzheimer's.
Watch Kim Lawton's report on all the different ways religion will be a part of the inaugural activities. And view excerpts from interviews with religious leaders participating in the inaugural festivities, including Pastor Rick Warren, Episcopal bishop Gene Robinson and Reverend Sharon Watkins.
The companion book to Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, now available in paperback in bookstores nationwide, can also be ordered through Shop Thirteen. “The Life of Meaning,” edited by the program's executive editor and host Bob Abernethy and longtime journalist William Bole, features a collection of insightful, moving and eloquent observations on life and how to live it by some of the most thoughtful men and women in
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