Mid-City Christian: Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly

This Week on 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

Corporate Morality
AIG, after receiving more than $170 billion in emergency aid from the federal government, is proceeding to pay bonuses worth $165 million to its executives. The company claims it has contractual obligations to make the payments and could face lawsuits if it did not do so. But President Obama, lawmakers and the American public are outraged that top business executives are receiving financial rewards despite their role in the current crisis, while taxpayers, who provided the money for the AIG bailout, are facing economic hardships. This ongoing firestorm has raised troubling questions about the morality of corporate America. Are multi-million dollar bonuses fair? What is the public responsibility of private companies — especially one like AIG, which is so big and powerful that its financial failure would mean disastrous consequences for the entire country?

Bob Abernethy is joined by Dr. David Miller, director of the Princeton University Faith & Work Initiative, for a studio discussion focusing on questions of corporate morality and public responsibility raised by the AIG controversy.

Civil Disobedience
Since he was a young boy, Tim DeChristopher has been a devoted environmentalist. So when the University of Utah student heard that the Bush administration had sanctioned a Bureau of Land Management auction of oil and gas drilling leases in Utah near national parks and pristine land, he decided to do something about it. Originally intending only to disrupt the event, DeChristopher ended up single-handedly bidding on and winning properties he could not buy, as well as running up the price on others in a brazen act of civil disobedience. While many conservationists think that DeChristopher's actions are heroic, others feel he should be aggressively prosecuted for committing a deliberate felony.

Lucky Severson talks with the 27-year-old economics major about his decision to defy federal law and examines whether DeChristopher's act of civil disobedience was warranted. “I figured I probably would go to prison,” DeChristopher explains. “So I had to ask myself if I could live with that. But on the other hand seeing this opportunity to protect some of this land/ and give us a better chance of a livable future, if I turn my back on that opportunity can I live with that. And I thought, ‘No, I can't live with that.'” But according to Kathleen Sgamma of the Independent Petroleum Association, “We are very protective of the environment with our activity despite what you hear in the press and despite the rhetoric of environmental groups . . . Much less than one percent of public lands is disturbed for oil and gas so that we can provide people heat for their homes.”

Jewish Reaction to Madoff Scandal
Last week, Bernard Madoff, former NASDAQ chairman pled guilty to 11 counts of criminal charges filed by federal prosecutors, admitting to defrauding many thousands of investors through a massive $65 billion-dollar Ponzi scheme. He faces life in prison and could be forced to pay as much as $170 billion in restitution. Many of Madoff's victims were Jewish charities and foundations, several of which were ruined or forced to close their doors.

Betty Rollin explores how the Madoff scandal has affected the Jewish non-profit world and what Rabbinical Jewish teachings say about business ethics. According to Rabbi Yitzhok Breitowitz with Woodside Synagogue in Silver Spring, Maryland, “If you are not honest in business, you are not a religious Jew because the same Bible, the same God that requires certain ritual observances — keeping kosher, observing the Shabbat and the like — says you have to be honest in your business affairs.”

Pope Benedict's Trip to Africa
In his first visit as pontiff to the world's poorest continent, Pope Benedict XVI is traveling to Africa, with stops in Cameroon and Angola. Africa is the one region in the world where Catholicism enjoys healthy growth. According to Vatican statistics, over the past century the number of African Catholics has grown to nearly 20 percent of the population. Kim Lawton reports on the Pope's visit, including his efforts to address the AIDS/condoms controversy and interfaith relations between Christians and Muslims.

ONLY ONLINE

War in Iraq
March 20 will mark six years of war in Iraq. Revisit our 2005 Web-exclusive piece on "Defining the Ethics of Exit in Iraq."

Religion in Africa
Pope Benedict XVI is in Africa this week visiting Angola and Cameroon. Watch a recent Web-only interview with Oliver Kisaka, Quaker minister and vice president of the National Council of Churches of Kenya.

And listen to Rev. Thomas Shaw, Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts, talk about Zimbabwe.

Torture and the War on Terror
The CIA's interrogation program amounted to torture for some of the detainees held by the agency, according to published excerpts from a secret 2007 Red Cross report that was leaked this week. Read our past Web-exclusive report on the torture debate.

And see Benedicta Cipolla's Web article about religious campaigns against torture.

WHAT'S AHEAD

March 27: “Seminaries and Sex" — Judy Valente reports on efforts to address the need to establish better sex education courses at Catholic seminaries around the country.

ONE NATION

Kim Lawton discusses how the Obama administration is attempting to reach out to Catholic and evangelical pro-life activists who are angered by some of its new policies.

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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