Abortion rights and health care are rarely far from the headlines, but they are especially hot topics given the furor over the decision — later rescinded — by the Susan G. Komen foundation to end most of its grants to Planned Parenthood.
Sports, at the professional and amateur levels, are enormously popular, and yet athletics are also linked to scandal and controversy in today’s headlines. In the case of allegations of child abuse, the crisis in sports recalls the problem in organized religions, and also highlights the nexus between religion and sports.
The legitimacy of the death penalty has emerged as a hot topic in the national conversation. Oregon’s governor declared a moratorium on executions, the execution of convicted murderer Troy Davis in September sparked controversy, and in October the Supreme Court heard a case whose outcome could affect the use of the death penalty.
Theologians have pondered the nature of evil for centuries, but for Americans, the attacks of Sept. 11 brought the issue home as few other atrocities in recent times have.
The State Department will release its annual report on human trafficking by the end of June, spotlighting the global trade in enforced labor and the selling or prostitution of people – as many as 27 million, mostly women and children – without their consent or benefit. The issue is increasingly mobilizing religious groups.
The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops met in June in Seattle to revise policies approved nearly a decade ago in response to the clergy sexual-abuse crisis. Many argue that recent developments show the bishops have even more work to do.
Plans to build or expand mosques have sparked controversy across the country in the past year, and news coverage has often focused on these disputes and cast them as symptomatic of a wider friction between Muslims and other Americans. But zoning issues are dogging efforts by all religious groups to build houses of worship.
Scientology always has a high profile owing to its many celebrity adherents, but recent headlines have not always been good news for the church. A lengthy New Yorker article profiled the defection of director and screenwriter Paul Haggis, for example, and revealed that the FBI is investigating Scientology on human trafficking allegations.
Latest religion news
Scientology's Secret Vaults: A Rare Interview With a Former Member of Hush-Hush 'CST' http://t.co/wd3auKer
Meet a Scientologist—Scientology Helped Paris Morfopoulos Reverse the Downward Course of his Life. http://t.co/gZgMUAoS
RT @Spoonyman: Scientology awarding Scientologists human rights awards is too funny.....Copyright © 2012 ReligionLink. Log in
Icons by Wefunction. Designed by 
Stories on ReligionLink are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
