SOUL FOOD:Religion is common thread in news

While Tina Turner famously posed the question “What’s love got to do with it?” the question more often posed to me is: “What’s religion got to do with it?”

“It” meaning anything at all.

Most often it’s a rhetorical question, to which I counter, “I’d rather hear what you think.”

Those who ask the question don’t think religion has anything to do with anything or, if it does, it shouldn’t. So, by writing about it, I’m only acting as though it does. Or, worse, encouraging those who think it should.

I mention this now for a couple of reasons. One, when I was recently introduced to a stranger as the writer of this column, the stranger flashed me a big smile and said, “I hope they pay you well because that’s the only reason I can think of that would make it worth writing a column like that.”

In his mind, writing this column earns me a rank somewhat lower than that of gossip columnist because I suffer from the delusion that my subject somehow embodies truth and that, as such, it’s worthwhile. The gossip columnist, he presumes, knows better.

I bring this up, too, because it’s January. And January, as it’s hard to miss, is list time.

You know. The top 10 sports moments. The top 10 pod casts. The top 10 video games. The top 10 break-ups. The top 10 crimes. The top 10 news stories (according to the Associated Press’s annual poll of U.S. editors and news directors). And the lesser-known top 10 religion stories (according to the Religion Newswriters Assn.).

The thought that anyone could read either of these two last lists (or, for that matter, any one of the others) and not be convinced that religion daily tweaks and shakes our world simply floors me. Consider them.

Of course, the Religion Newswriters Assn.’s list of stories are going to have a religion angle. But just look at the AP’s list of top news stories:

1. Iraq (think war)

2. November U.S. midterm elections

3. Nuclear standoffs

4. Illegal immigration

5. Scandals in Congress

6. [Saddam] Hussein trial

7. Mideast (particularly defined as the month-long conflict between Israel and Lebanon-based Hezbollah militia that killed more than 900 people)

8. Rumsfeld (as in his post-election resignation)

9. Airliner plot (which British authorities say was narrowly averted)

10. Darfur (think genocide)

Name each one and ask yourself, “What’s religion got to do with it?” Then tell me eight out of 10 of these stories weren’t (or aren’t) in some way shaped by religion.

The midterm elections came in fifth on the Religion Newswriters’ list, which framed the story like this: “Candidates backed by the Religious Right suffer a series of defeats … with many voters citing morality as one of the strongest motivators in the way they cast their ballot.”

Iraq and the Mideast were found merged at number six, which described “religious voices grow[ing] louder for peace in Iraq,” and, in light of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Christian churches reconsidering “efforts to pressure Israel on the Palestinian question.”

The genocide in Darfur, which the association saw as “based more on nationality than religion,” didn’t quite make the top 10, coming in at No. 12. (You can read the whole list, the top 10 stories and the 10 that didn’t make the cut, at www.rna.org/ pr_061213top10.php.)

Only two stories from the AP’s list don’t have rather obvious religious implications — nuclear standoffs and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s exit from the Bush administration. Yet, if you explored their terrains beyond the surface, I’d bet you good money — were I the sort to bet — you would find significant stories tied to religion in them, too.

Has or has not religious ideology fueled the push to develop nuclear armaments in Iran? Haven’t laymen and leaders questioned aloud why more moderate Muslims haven’t raised their voices above a whisper to counter President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s aggressive creed?

On Monday, news here and abroad found and focused on such critical remarks made by Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri regarding Ahmadinejad’s policies.

“One has to deal with the enemy with wisdom, not provoke it,” he was reported to have said. “[Provocation] only creates problems for the country.”

Delivered to opponents of the Iranian president, the ayatollah’s comments were considered well received by some conservative allies of the president as well.

As much as any driving force — fortune, fame, power, love, hate, lust — religion is an element in our social structure.

Since Nietzsche, philosophers have been declaring God dead. But he just won’t die. By whatever name, however they envision him, he remains alive as ever for billions on this planet Earth.

From Charles Darwin to Richard Dawkins, scientists have proclaimed religion’s impending demise. Yet that notion itself has fallen to ruin far more than has religion.

The long-anticipated secular society has given way to a religious fervor that for some is surprising, if not perplexing. More and more, it has a very public face.

Pick a field, any field: entertainment, law, politics, literature, scholarship, publishing, science. At some point, religion runs through it.

I have headlines to prove it. Lots of them. But here are six stories. From one newspaper. Within one week.

“Sitcom’s devout belief that faith can yield fun” -- about Canada’s “Little Mosque on the Prairie.” “Opening Pandora’s box in Poland” — about (almost) archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus’s resignation after it’s revealed he was a collaborator in Poland’s former communist regime.

“Award to Islamic activist retracted” -- about Sen. Barbara Boxer rescinding a “certificate of achievement” awarded to Basim Elkarra, head of the Sacramento office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “One Nation, under God … “ — a review of Chris Hedges’ book, “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”

There’s a long headline for a story about Marie Kolasinski, the 85-year-old, foul-mouthed leader of a tiny sect in Costa Mesa known as the Piecemakers. The owner of a retail store and café, Kolasinski was jailed for defying the health department.

“Was it virtue or betrayal?” looks at the strain that came between Gnostic scholar Marvin Meyer and his friend and mentor James M. Robinson when Meyer worked with National Geographic to produce its program about the controversial “Gospel of Judas.”

Are you going to tell me God is dead, religion is wasting away and they have nothing to do with anything?