An Evangelical Identity Crisis
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566654/site/newsweek/
=EF=BB=BFSex or social justice? The war between the religious right and
believers who want to go broader.
By Lisa Miller
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - It was a cold Halloween in Colorado Springs=E2=80=94T=
he
high barely hit 27 degrees=E2=80=94as Dr. James Dobson went about his work
last week on the sprawling Focus on the Family campus he built in the
shadows of the Rockies. From the evangelical organization's lofty perch
(the city sits 6,035 feet above sea level), in the spirit of a day
devoted to ghosts and goblins, Dobson's radio show, which reaches 220
million people worldwide, evoked what he hoped would be dark and scary
visions for his fellow evangelical Christians: a nation filled with
married gay couples. With same-sex-marriage initiatives on ballots in
eight states, Dobson told his flock in a taped broadcast, they could
not afford to stay home on Election Day. If they did, "we could ...
begin to have same-sex marriage in places all over the country."
A Dissent: The Case Against Faith
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566391/site/newsweek/
Religion does untold damage to our politics. An atheist's lament.
By Sam Harris
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - Despite a full century of scientific insights
attesting to the antiquity of life and the greater antiquity of the
Earth, more than half the American population believes that the entire
cosmos was created 6,000 years ago. This is, incidentally, about a
thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue. Those with the power
to elect presidents and congressmen=E2=80=94and many who themselves get
elected=E2=80=94believe that dinosaurs lived two by two upon Noah's Ark, th=
at
light from distant galaxies was created en route to the Earth and that
the first members of our species were fashioned out of dirt and divine
breath, in a garden with a talking snake, by the hand of an invisible
God.
A New Social Gospel
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566389/site/newsweek/
Many evangelicals are chafing at the narrowness of the religious right.
A new faith-based agenda.
By Michael Gerson
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - During my time in the White House, the most
intense and urgent evangelical activism I saw did not come on the
expected values issues=E2=80=94though abortion and the traditional family
weren't ignored=E2=80=94but on genocide, global AIDS and human trafficking.
The most common request I received was, "We need to meet with the
president on Sudan"=E2=80=94not on gay marriage. This reflects a
head-snapping generational change among evangelicals, from leaders like
Falwell and Robertson to Rick Warren, focused on fighting poverty and
AIDS in Africa, and Gary Haugen, confronting rape and sexual slavery in
the developing world. Since leaving government, I've asked young
evangelicals on campuses from Wheaton to Harvard who they view as their
model of Christian activism. Their answer is nearly unanimous: Bono.
Vanity, Thy Name Is ...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15563300/site/newsweek/
Dumbo? An elephant passes the 'mirror test.'
By Jerry Adler
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - What does an animal see in a mirror? Until 1970,
the accepted answer was "another animal": a stranger to be greeted,
threatened, courted=E2=80=94or ignored. In that year, psychologist Gordon
Gallup Jr. came up with the idea of giving a chimpanzee a mirror and
painting a mark on his face while he slept. With one small
gesture=E2=80=94reaching to touch the mark on his own face when he
awakened=E2=80=94the chimp touched off a revolution not only in psychology,
but philosophy as well. He saw himself.
The Worst of Both Worlds?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15563663/site/newsweek/
Scare stories about global warming may end up justifying policies that
hurt the economy without much curbing of greenhouse gases.
By Robert J. Samuelson
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - It seems impossible to have an honest
con-versation about global warming. I say this after diligently
perusing the British government's huge report released last week by Sir
Nicholas Stern, former chief economist of the World Bank and now a high
civil servant. The report is a masterpiece of misleading public
relations.
Morality Tale: A Pastor's Fall From Grace
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566650/site/newsweek/
He was a national evangelical leader, until a scandal brought him low.
The Rev. Ted Haggard's rocky journey.
By Jonathan Darman and Andrew Murr
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - The Rev. Ted Haggard had boyish dimples and a
perpetual placid smile, but spoke of demons on earth. As a young pastor
in Colorado Springs, Colo., he tore apart the local phone book and
prayed over every name. He warned of "Satanists" and covens abroad in
the city. Over time, his New Life evangelical church grew to be among
the most powerful houses of worship in the country, with a congregation
some 14,000 strong. Haggard called these faithful "Puritan
descendants," but spoke of the omnipresence of sin. To be a Christian,
he warned, "is to be in a constant state of war."
Church Meets State
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566656/site/newsweek/
The left often complains that evangelicals have too much influence in
American life. But evangelicals themselves grumble that the politicians
they help elect leave much of their agenda undone. So what impact has
the religious right actually had on public policy? An overview:
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - JUDGES
This may be the religious right's biggest policy success. George W.
Bush not only named two seemingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court
justices, but he has also made more than 250 lifetime appointments to
lower federal courts=E2=80=94more than a quarter of the federal judiciary.
(Now more than half the federal judiciary has been appointed by GOP
presidents.) Those judges will rule on issues such as teaching
"intelligent design," whether the Pledge of Allegiance can contain the
words "under God" and which abortion restrictions are constitutional.
When Bush tried to name his moderate White House counsel Harriet Miers
to the Supreme Court last year, the right objected; Bush appointed the
more solidly conservative Samuel Alito instead. Evangelicals hope that
over time Alito and new Chief Justice John Roberts will provide the
crucial votes to roll back Roe v. Wade. If Bush gets a third high-court
appointment, those odds could increase.
The Democrats' Engine Room
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566390/site/newsweek/
By Howard Fineman
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - No one accuses Eliot Spitzer of being a nice guy.
His handshake is bone-crunching, his wide smile vaguely predatory. As
attorney general of New York state, he terrorized Wall Street,
collaring a pin-striped menagerie of inside traders, CEOs and other
club-level ganefs. Campaigning for governor last week in the Hudson
River Valley, he sounded more like a prosecutor than a happy-talking
Democrat. In fact, Spitzer's hero is not FDR, but the other New York
governor named Roosevelt: Teddy, a trust-busting Republican. To inspire
the state, Spitzer vows to flush out the "ossified" systems of
government in Albany; to spur the economy, he wants to trim taxes and
lance a bloated health-care system. "There are going to be tough
decisions," he told editors of the Middletown newspaper. "We're going
to close hospitals. We have to brace for reality."
Time to Solve Immigration
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566722/site/newsweek/
After Nov. 7, it will make enormous political sense for all sides to
come together.
By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek International
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - If Iraq was the dominating topic of the election
season in the United States, immigration is the issue that wasn't.
Despite the efforts of populist and nativist politicians and pundits to
whip up hysteria about a looming catastrophe, Americans didn't bite. In
a news-week poll taken last week, voters listed immigration a distant
fifth on their list of concerns=E2=80=94after Iraq, terrorism, the economy
and health care.
India's Secret Weapon
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15566724/site/newsweek/
Nonresident Indians were once viewed with suspicion. But now they and
their money are coming back home.
By Jason Overdorf
Newsweek International
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - In a way, the story of India and its diaspora
reads like a Bollywood script about two brothers, the younger one rich
and successful, the older one poor but closer to the family. And now,
not too late in life, they are reconciling.
Asia's New Gods
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15564787/site/newsweek/
History and culture have helped the region push religion out of the
public sphere, so it can surge toward modernity.
By Kishore Mahbubani
Newsweek International
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - Most Asians are unaware that Christian
evangelical movements have gained enormous political power in America.
And if they were to learn this, they would be mystified. Their images
of America remain the old ones: scenes of Hollywood and sexual
permissiveness, secularism, money worship and devotion to modern
science and technology. None of these squares with an America under the
sway of fundamentalist or evangelical Christianity.
The Color Of Money
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15549205/site/newsweek/
How green is their Silicon Valley? The redoubtable venture capitalists
of Kleiner Perkins are now betting $200 million on environmentally
friendly technology.
By Brad Stone
Newsweek
Nov. 13, 2006 issue - Silicon valley venture capitalists are typically
reluctant to invest in companies more than an hour's drive from their
offices. Far-flung start-ups are simply too difficult to manage. So it
was curious, a few weeks ago, to find John Doerr, the most famous
partner at the Valley's most storied venture capital firm, Kleiner
Perkins Caufield & Byers, scouting for investment opportunities all the
way in Brazil. In a two-day, 10-meeting whirlwind trip, Doerr, his KP
partner Ellen Pao, and Doerr's friend, author Thomas Friedman,
barnstormed the country's ethanol industry, which produces half of
Brazil's automobile fuel from sugar cane. The trio met with energy
entrepreneurs and took a helicopter to the world's second largest
ethanol mill, where 100,000 tons
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