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

Israeli Election
Both Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and hard-line rival Benjamin Netanyahu are claiming victory in this week's parliamentary election in Israel. But the race appears to be too close to call. With more than two-thirds of the votes counted, Livni's centrist Kadima party held 29 seats compared to Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party, which secured 28 seats. And, without a clear majority, neither can govern alone, setting the stage for what could be weeks of coalition negotiations and no definitive political message of how Israelis want their government to approach relations with the Palestinians.

Bob Abernethy talks with former Ambassador Warren Clark, executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace, and Rabbi Jack Moline, chairman of the Interfaith Alliance, about the outcome of the Israeli election and the prospects for reconciliation in the region.

Open Adoption
The open adoption movement, which started in the 1980s, has largely transformed the culture of infant adoption in the United States. Open adoption relationships can range from an occasional exchange of photos and e-mails between birth parents and adoptive families to regular visits. While experts say this practice has helped remove the anxieties of adoptive families and the shame of birth parents, others in the adoption community believe there's still a place for secrecy, especially if the birth parents wish to remain anonymous or because of safety issues.

Saul Gonzalez explores the concerns raised by open adoptions and whether the practice is helping — or hurting — the adoption process. According to adoptive mother Loren Halleran, “Bo, will always know, always know his birth mother. He will always know that he was placed out of love. That it was never, ever a question of not being wanted, but more an issue of Sarah wanting more than she could provide at this time.”

Chrislam
Approximately half of Nigeria's 140 million people are Muslim, while the other half profess some form of Christianity. It's been a political fault line over the years, and tensions have often erupted in deadly violence. But in the country's largest city of Lagos, people of both faiths are coming together in a unique worship community known as “Chrislam.”

Fred de Sam Lazaro provides a behind-the-scenes look at how Chrislam practitioners are finding common ground in blended liturgy. “The Bible, you know, concentrates on teachings of love,” observes Dr. Ishak Akintola with Lagos State University. “That's what Jesus says in Mathew, Chapter Five: that you love your neighbor and you even love your enemy. Now you find the Qu'ran saying exactly the same thing . . . ‘Pay evil back with goodness.' If you do that, those who used to hate you before, those who are your enemies before, will so become your friend.”

ONLY ONLINE

Dover Caskets
This week President Obama said his administration is reviewing the Pentagon's ban on media coverage of flag-draped coffins returning to Dover Air Force Base. Revisit R & E's 2004 report.

Arrival of the War Dead
Read Web-exclusive commentary on the arrival of the war dead.

Military Coffins
And read Andrew Hudgins' essay on military coffins.

Markets and Morality
Watch Web-only video of Brookings Institution senior fellow William Galston on the vices and virtues of market societies.

Wealth and Wall Street
And hear from News Corporation vice president William McGurn on wealth and Wall Street.

Zimbabwe and the Churches
Zimbabwe's new unity government faces serious human rights emergencies. Watch Rev. Thomas Shaw, Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, who visited Zimbabwe last year and talked with Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly managing editor Kim Lawton after his return about Zimbabwe's ongoing religious, political, economic, and humanitarian crisis.

WHAT'S AHEAD

February 13: “Joel Hunter" — Kim Lawton talks to Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter about his recent appointment to President Obama's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

ONE NATION

Kim Lawton discusses the appointees to President Barack Obama's new advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and describes what they will be doing; and more religious leaders share their hopes for the first 100 days of the Obama Administration.

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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