(RNS) President Obama’s speech to the Muslim world has been ranked by the nation’s religion journalists as the top religion story of the year.
The June speech in Cairo, in which the president quoted from the Quran and said America will “never” be at war with Islam, was ranked as the No. 1 religion story by members of the Religion Newswriters Association.
Evangelical leader Rick Warren, whose invocation at Obama’s inauguration was greeted by protests from gay-rights groups, was named the 2009 Religion Newsmaker of the Year.
The entire top 10 is as follows:
1. President Obama promises a new start of Muslim-U.S. relations in a speech at Cairo University.
2. Health care reform, the key topic in Congress for much of the year, includes religious groups urging assistance for “the least of these” and groups like the Roman Catholic bishops seeking restrictions on abortion funding.
3. Considered a devout Muslim, Maj. Nidal Hasan, the accused gunman in the Fort Hood massacre, prompts a review of the role of Islam in terrorism, with some fearing a backlash.
4. Dr. George Tiller, considered the nation’s leading abortion doctor, is shot to death while ushering at his Wichita, Kansas, church.
5. Mormons in California come under attack from some gay rights supporters because of their November 2008 lobbying efforts on Proposition 8, which outlawed gay marriage. Iowa, Vermont and New Hampshire approved gay marriage later in the year but it is overturned by Maine voters.
6. President Obama gives the commencement speech and receives an honorary degree at the University of Notre Dame after the Roman Catholic university becomes embroiled in debates over his abortion views.
7. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America votes to ordain gay and lesbian clergy who are in a monogamous committed relationship, prompting some conservative churches to make steps toward forming a new denomination.
8. The recession forces cutbacks at a range of faith-related organizations — houses of worship, colleges and seminaries, relief agencies and publishing houses.
9. The Episcopal Church’s General Convention votes to end a moratorium on installing gay bishops, disregarding a request from the archbishop of Canterbury.
10. President Obama’s inauguration features controversial prayers by evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren and civil rights veteran Joseph Lowery, as well as a pre-ceremony prayer by gay Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson.
By Adelle M. Banks
Copyright 2009 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.
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posted December 16, 2009 at 10:45 pm
It speaks poorly of religion that so many of these stories are about homosexuality and abortion, two items that should be left to the people involved.
If religion should be doing anything it should be helping us get along better and succoring the needy and just possibly updating their reference materials, some of which were written millenia ago and have large portions irrelevant to the modern world.
posted December 17, 2009 at 12:28 am
Sad, sad, sad, what kind of world are we leaving our kids. Obama is leading us down the road to poverty and people are going to grow even more cold toward each other. We only just begun to see chaos hit our country.
posted December 17, 2009 at 12:02 pm
cknuck, you are such a pessimest! You must know that almost every generation has said the same thing. They had all kinds of problems too…wars, depressions, plagues, and somehow we have all survived and our children are dealing just like everyone else. My parents had WWII, theirs had WWI, and their parents etc. If everyone was so worried they wouldn’t keep having children.
mmmns: Your first paragraph is right on!
posted December 17, 2009 at 12:03 pm
nnmns, sorry I goofed up your name above;
)
posted December 17, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Obama is leading us to poverty? Hah! Where were you when Bush cut taxes, mostly for the wealthy but enough for the rest of us to sell it, then put us into two wars (one totally unnecessary) without any hint of paying for them? Where was your concern then for our national debt? Like most conservatives you didn’t complain about the war debt, only debt incurred to help the non-wealthy.
posted December 17, 2009 at 11:37 pm
nnmns i have never agreed with Bush’s policies and I didn’t vote for him, I voted for Obama but I disagree with his policies also, so my concerns were as heated with Bush as Obama
posted December 18, 2009 at 9:46 pm
We were both posting while Bush was president and I don’t remember you sniping at him like you are at President Obama.z9htkp
posted December 18, 2009 at 11:51 pm
Well we are all getting old and the memory may or may not be the first thing to go. I tell the truth about all politicians you can call it sniping if you want but remember that when we get into heated discussions and you accuse me of attacking.
posted December 21, 2009 at 2:27 pm
The description of the number 5 story is a bit inaccurate. Mormons in California did not “lobby” for Proposition 8. “Lobbying” means meeting with legislators to try to persuade them to vote for your favored legislation. Lobbying is viewed as a negative activity that is done behind closed doors by “special interests”.
But Proposition 8 was not a legislative bill, it was a referendum vote by the citizens of California. What Mormons, and Catholics, and Orthodox Jews and Evangelical Christians did was a voter drive to encourage people to go to the polls and vote. In other words, they exercised their rights as citizens to encourage other citizens to vote. The majority of blacks and Hispanic voters in California did that, providing a majority of citizens that passed Prop 8.
Mormons in California make up only 2% of voters. Mormons were clearly singled out for retaliation precisely because they are a minority, and targeting the majority of black and hispanic people would boomerang on the strategy of gay and lesbian organizations who try to claim that they are “just like racial minorities” in being oppressed by laws that do not accept their behavior as legally equivalent to heterosexual behavior.
The elements of “gay rights” activists who attacked California Mormons for participating in democracy thus revealed that they don’t believe in democracy, and that as soon as they acquire political or legal power they will use it to abuse religious believers who do not accept homosexual activities as morally equivalent to heterosexual marriage.
posted December 21, 2009 at 6:06 pm
coltakashi, I don’t know where that came from but it did need to said and you did it very well.