Mid-City Christian: Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

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

Obama's Faith-Based Council
Since 1953, members of Congress have hosted the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., which brings together political, social and business leaders from around the nation and the world. And, in keeping with the tradition of this annual event, President Barack Obama will address this year's gathering. Throughout his 2008 campaign, election and inaugural activities, President Obama has acknowledged the importance of religion in his life. Already his Administration is in the process of staffing the newly renamed White House Council of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, beginning with the selection of Joshua DuBois as its head. Kim Lawton joins Bob Abernethy for a studio discussion focusing on the President's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast and what's ahead for his Administration's new Faith-Based Council.

Check out the “One Nation” report on the selection of Josh DuBois.

Darwin at 200
February 12 marks the 200th birthday of the late evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin. His seminal work, “Origin of the Species,” published in 1859, introduced the theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. But 150 years later, Darwin's theory is still being debated. While an overwhelming majority of scientists subscribe to Darwin's evolutionary views, many Americans are sharply divided over this issue, which directly challenges the biblical story of creation.

Fred de Sam Lazaro travels to Texas, the latest battleground in this debate, where the Board of Education is about to adopt new standards for the state's science curriculum that would eliminate the long-standing requirement that students examine both the “strengths and weaknesses” of all scientific theories, including evolution. According to Brown University biology professor Kenneth Miller, “Evolution is a great idea but it's also a dangerous idea. It's an idea that threatens people's understanding of the way things are. And for a century and a half people who are bothered by that idea have never stopped hoping that Darwin might turn out to be spectacularly, colossally, totally and completely wrong.”

Joe Eszterhas
Dubbed by Time Magazine as “America's king of sex and violence,” Joe Eszterhas was once Hollywood's highest-paid screenwriter known for erotic sizzlers like “Basic Instinct” and “Showgirls.” His films grossed over one billion dollars, financed homes in Malibu and Maui, and an outrageous lifestyle. But in 2001, feeling desolate and lost following surgery to remove 80 percent of his cancerous larynx, Eszterhas experienced a spiritual transformation, which he later described in his memoir “Crossbearer” as being “God-struck.”

Bob Faw talks with the Hungarian-born Eszterhas, now cancer-free, about how faith now plays an important and vital role in his life. “When I opened myself up to the possibility of God entering my heart, I think God did, “Eszterhas explains. “That day I was ambushed by God . . . It's something miraculous. I thank God for gracing me. I always will.”

ONLY ONLINE

Executive Compensation
This week the Obama administration capped executive pay at $500,000 for companies receiving federal bailout dollars. Revisit R & E's previous report on executive compensation.

Obama's Faith Based Partnerships
Watch excerpts from a July 1, 2008 speech at the East Side Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio, when Barack Obama first announced his plans for a new White House Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Theology and Economy
Questions about the freedom of the market are theological questions, and the theological answer is that there is no such thing as a value-neutral free market, writes theology professor William Cavanaugh. Read more Web-exclusive commentary on theology and the economy.

God and Empire
Throughout its more than 2,000-year history, Christianity has found itself both adversary and handmaiden to empire and emperors. Read more of David Anderson's Web-only essay.

WHAT'S AHEAD

February 13: “Chrislam" — Fred de Sam Lazaro reports from Nigeria on a unique worship community that brings Christians and Muslims together.

ONE NATION

Watch Peggy Bulger, director of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, describe the response so far to the Inauguration 2009 Sermons and Orations Project; and hear what Michael Steele, a devout Catholic and newly elected chairman of the Republican National Committee, has to say about faith and values in excerpts from two recent speeches.

THE LIFE OF MEANING

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 America, and beyond. Among them are Desmond Tutu, Francis Collins, Marianne Williamson, Irving Greenberg, Barbara Brown Taylor, Harold Kushner, Madeleine L'Engle, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Jimmy Carter and the late William Sloane Coffin.

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