Friday’s Religion News Roundup: A new ABC, Bibi’s bromance with Barack, Evangelicalism’s Man of the Moment?

Is smoking weed a virtue and not a vice? Are anti-Muslim pols losing ground? Have you found your Barack Obama nativity figurine yet? Book a trip to Naples...

Election news! No, that that election. In England, the Anglican Communion has a new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, a former oil company executive and “baby bishop” – he’s been Bishop of Durham for just a year. As they say, Your Grace, be careful what you pray for.

In other election news, Charles Darwin garnered nearly 4,000 write-in votes in his race against the evolution-denying incumbent in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. GOP Rep. Paul Broun. Not bad for a dead guy, but not enough.

American Muslims are happy to see that anti-Islamic candidates fared poorly on Tuesday.


Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to smooth things over with Barack Obama now that the president has been returned to office.

Video of the Day: Neapolitan craftsmen are carving Obama figurines for Italian nativity scenes to mark the election. (Romney figures are going at a discount.)

The ‘Nones’ – they generally don’t have nativity scenes or figurines carved in their likeness – say the 2012 election proves they are a political force.

Stephen Prothero explains: “Seven ways religious diversity played in the election”

The Catholic bishops meet next week with Obama’s reelection on their minds but one of their own members, found guilty of covering up for a child abuser, in their midst. What will they do?

More Catholic controversy: the University of San Diego’s decision to uninvite a leading British theologian because she signed a letter supporting civil marriage for gays has upset faculty and may portend a drawn-out battle.

Question of the Day: Is smoking weed a virtue?

No good deed goes unpunished: A man preaching at a bus stop in Alabama was lured to a house on the pretense of saving souls and robbed at gunpoint.

The Man to Watch in Evangelicalism today? Not Franklin Graham, says David Brody, but the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.


The Box to Fill: that would be the one below, with your email, to get this Daily Religion News Roundup every day, free.

David Gibson

Photo credit: Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury

 

 

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