Friday’s Religion News Roundup

It was real. It was on TV. But was it Reality TV? To Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York, Thursday’s hearing on the “radicalization” of American Muslims was nothing more than “the equivalent of reality TV.” For sure, the hearing broadcast all the tears, belligerence, navel gazing and banality we’ve come to expect from reality […]

It was real. It was on TV.

But was it Reality TV?

To Rep. Yvette Clarke of New York, Thursday’s hearing on the “radicalization” of American Muslims was nothing more than “the equivalent of reality TV.”


For sure, the hearing broadcast all the tears, belligerence, navel gazing and banality we’ve come to expect from reality TV. (Does anyone care that Rep. Bill Pascrell ate more Arab food than pizza during his youth in New Jersey?)

So, will the hearing be remembered as a watershed in the lives of American Muslims, a worthwhile probe into the dark heart of radical Islam, or the congressional equivalent of “Jersey Shore”?

Here’s what history’s first draft has to say:

WaPo takes the style-over-substance line, highlighting the “moments of pure theater and genuine acrimony” on the Hill. Almost everyone notes Rep. Keith Ellison’s tearful testimony about a Muslim 9/11 first responder who was wrongly rumored to have been involved in the terrorist plot. Some of the hearing’s most rancorous moments came when Democrats challenged the constitutionality of the event itself, notes the NYT. In fact, what the hearing revealed most of all was the deep partisan divide in lawmakers’ approach to counterrorism, saith the Old Grey Lady.

Outside House Canon Room 311, Muslims watched the hearing warily and interfaith leaders denounced it. Undaunted, Rep. Peter King, the Homeland Security Committee chairman who spearheaded the hearing, says more are on the way, including probes of foreign funding in U.S. mosques and radical Islam in U.S. prisons.

In related news, NPR reports that border agents are asking Muslims about their religion, and where they pray and how often – all of which might be a violation of the First Amendment.

Nine Army officers are being reprimanded for failing to detect and report problems about the accused Fort Hood shooter, whose slide into radical Islam should have been noticed, the AP reports.

Eleven Muslim students will be arraigned on charges of disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador at a public university in California – a case that has stoked a fierce debate about the freedom of speech.

The Dalai Lama (again) said that he will give up his political role in the Tibetan government-in-exile and shift that power to an elected representative. Human Rights Watch criticized Chechnya for trying to “intimidate” women into adopting an Islamic dress code.


Whispers has a roundup of Catholic bishops lamenting the Philly sex abuse scandal, and Pope Benedict XVI’s new book was released. The book, which is the second in the pontiff’s planned trilogy on the life of Jesus, calls violence in the name of religion “the favorite instrument of the Antichrist.” Two men have begun the trek from Poland to Rome – on foot – for the beatification of their beloved Pope John Paul II.

Conservationists at the National Museum of American History are restoring the nearly 200-year-old “Jefferson Bible” so it can go on display this November. An 11-year-old evangelical has written a bestseller about his experience in the afterlife, a publishing feat that will make the world’s many novelist manques very upset.

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!