BOB ABERNETHY: As 2011 draws to a close we take our annual look back at what we think were the most interesting and important religion and ethics stories of the year. We begin with a reminder from Kim Lawton of what some of those stories were.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: As the gap between rich and poor widened this year, people of faith stepped up their efforts to help those hard hit by the recession. Some, especially conservative, activists supported massive cuts to the federal budget, arguing that it was immoral to leave debt to future generations. But a broad-based interfaith coalition argued that it was immoral to make spending cuts that would hurt already-vulnerable people. Thousands participated in a prayer and fasting campaign to protect programs that help the poor in the US and around the world. When frustration about the economy spilled out into the streets with the Occupy Movement, many religious groups provided spiritual and material support. Local congregations led interfaith worship services and offered sanctuary to evicted protesters. Theologians debated whether Jesus would have camped out with the Occupy movement.

The role of religion in American politics remained controversial. GOP presidential hopefuls courted religious voters, especially evangelicals who are very important in the primaries. Many candidates made explicitly religious appeals. While some concern about the idea of a Mormon president lingered, especially among evangelicals, issues of character and marital fidelity appeared to generate more attention.

In several parts of the Arab World, popular uprisings toppled regimes and reignited debates about the role of Islam and government. New political successes for Islamist political parties raised concerns about human rights and especially the situation for dissenters and religious minorities. In Egypt, Muslims and Christians protested side-by-side in Tahrir Square, but there were several dramatic attacks against the nation’s Coptic Christian community. In Syria, protesters were met with a brutal crackdown from government forces.

American ethicists and religious leaders debated the morality of military intervention in Libya. Some said US participation in the NATO action was justified on humanitarian grounds, but others argued that it did not meet the criteria of the Just War doctrine. The killings of Osama bin-Laden and extremist American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki generated ethical debate about the US use of force in noncombat zones. There was also debate about the growing US use of weaponized unmanned drones.

American religious groups were divided over the Palestinians’ request for official UN recognition as a state. Many Jews and Evangelical Christians opposed the statehood bid. But some Christian and Muslim groups supported the idea, saying it was time for Palestinians to have their own state.

The tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks prompted new examination of the state of interfaith relations. Many Muslim-Americans complained of a continuing rise of anti-Islamic discrimination. On Capitol Hill, Republican Congressman Peter King sponsored hearings on what he called the “radicalization of American Muslims.” There was acrimonious debate in several communities over proposed bans against shariah or Islamic law. At the same time, the 9/11 anniversary highlighted many projects where diverse faith communities have come together in new ways.

Several humanitarian disasters stretched the resources of faith-based groups. Religious organizations continued efforts in Haiti after last year’s devastating earthquake and cholera epidemic, and they offered aid in the wake of the Japanese earthquake. Many faith-based groups mobilized to help millions affected by a major famine in East Africa. There were also challenges here at home with deadly tornados, severe flooding, and a rare East Coast earthquake that caused as estimated $15 million dollars’ worth of damage at Washington National Cathedral.

But 2011 brought some occasions for celebration as well. Christians commemorated the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible. And in Rome, on a record-breaking timetable, Pope John Paul the Second was beatified, bringing him one step closer to sainthood.

ABERNETHY: Kim a great summary. Kim Lawton is managing editor of Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Kevin Eckstrom is the Editor-in-Chief of Religion News Service and E.J. Dionne is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a columnist for the Washington Post and a professor at Georgetown University. Welcome to each of you.

ALL: Thank you.

ABERNETHY: I guess my pick for the year would be the Arab Spring and everything that flowed out of it leading to the Occupy Movement all over the United States. E.J. what do you make of that?

E.J. DIONNE (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution): Well I think the Arab Spring is one of those events that could have longest term impact on the nature of the world. I mean when you’re thinking about how many Arab and Muslim countries were transformed by this. We don’t know where this is going yet, but it was striking that this movement was a very broad alliance of people some who were Islamists, some who were secular, some from the Christian minority all saying we’re sick and tired of corruption and dictatorship. Now, it’s playing out differently in different places, we don’t know where it’s going but it sure was a very liberating moment. I’m not sure it led to the Occupy Wall Street, although some of the Occupy Wall Streeters talked about an inspiration, but it was a year in which protestors of a lot of different kinds changed the world.

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly): And it really did bring up this whole question about when you have a democracy then what is the role of religion? And many countries obviously have been wrestling with this, we wrestle with it, but in Islamic countries that’s a question and how do you form a new government, write a constitution that acknowledges Islam but then what does that mean in terms of the laws and the people and the treatment of minorities and women. And so all of those issues are being debated and people are watching because there are a lot of Muslims countries that, that have been struggling with this issue.

ABERNETHY: And the irony that democracy might lead to a lot of things that we don’t like.

DIONNE: Right and I think Kim put her finger on something, which is you know we’ve had Christian democratic movements in western countries for a long time where there was some kind of linkage with, between religion and the state and yet an acknowledgement of the importance of religious freedom and democracy. There are religious parties inside Israel that compete with secular parties and so the real question, or one of the real questions is whether similar developments will take place in Arab world, in the Arab world and I think and we’ve seen certainly in countries like Indonesia where you can have parties that are Islamic but also democratic.

KEVIN ECKSTROM (Religion News Service, Editor-in-Chief): And I think what’s interesting here at home on the Occupy movement was it’s not a religious movement per say, although there has been religious involvement, but it prompted a lot of really heavy religious and moral arguments about fairness and equity and how we spread wealth or how we hold people accountable. And so there for some fairly profound, I think, moral questions that were raised by the Occupy movement.

ABERNETHY: And E.J. a year ago we were all preoccupied with the Tea Party movement the year passed and we are all preoccupied on the left with the Occupy movement. What happened?

DIONNE: Well I think what the two movements had in common is that a lot of people in the country are unhappy with the results of the economic downturn on the state of the economy right through the 2010 election the inclination, the strongest organizing was on the side that said this is all the government’s fault and we have to tear down government. I think Occupy really changed our political debate in fundamental ways. A lot of people had been talking about rising economic inequality, which has really been happening over a 30 or 40 year period. It took this movement with a certain kind of media savvy to grab all kinds of people’s attention to get all kinds of people including conservatives to talk about what rising inequality means and whether we ought to do something about it.

LAWTON: I’m intrigued by the amount of religious participation there is in the Occupy movement just as there is in the Tea Party movement. There were a lot of Evangelicals that had some, you know, still do, that have some affinity with the Tea Party. On the religious left there’s a lot of participation, not just with chaplains, which they do have in the, in the movement but, but in, in talking about some of the language and helping behind the scenes with some of the strategy and also in some of the rhetoric that’s being used. You see, you hear things like greed is evil. That’s a moral kind of a calculation you know and inequality and the gap between the rich and poor, that’s wrong, it’s evil. Those are all moral issues and that’s the influence I think of the religious community. African American clergy have joined in on this and want to get more involved and they see it as an extension of the Civil Rights movement.

DIONNE: And this is the 25th anniversary of the Catholic Bishops’ very important statement at the time, economic justice for all. And some of us at Georgetown went back and were talking about this and in a lot of ways that statement from 25 years ago parts of it could be a manifesto for this movement demanding economic justice.

ABERNETHY: But do you hear in all this something that not only protests what we have, but that goes on to say that we ought to change it, fundamentally change the system, the political system, the economic system. Is that in there, too or not?

DIONNE: Well I think the I mean the Occupy movement has been very consciously not about particular demands, some people have criticized them for that, although I think historically a lot of movements change things not by putting up a program but by saying we need to move in a different direction. But I think a lot of these movements are more reformist than they are uh revolutionary.

ABERNETHY: Right.

DIONNE: There’s clearly a lot of frustration with Congress and the way Washington is working, but I still think even some of the more radical elements of some of these movements um are not looking to overturn the system, they just think it needs to be a whole lot better than it is.

ABERNETHY: Yeah. Meanwhile there’s been this amazing campaign on the Republican side for the nomination for president and in that Mitt Romney’s Mormonism comes up as you pointed out Kim in your piece. Is that going to hurt him?

ECKSTROM: I think it will be a challenge for him to get through the primaries. If he can make it through the primaries and gets the nomination and can get to the general election I think it’ll be less of an issue. But I think at this point in the last couple weeks what we’ve seen is that it’s not his Mormonism that’s Romney’s Achilles heel, it’s the conservative distrust of him. And you’ve seen it, you know, Romney has stayed fairly stable in the polls, he never gets above 20, 23% and everyone’s looking for a Plan B or another option but they’re not really falling in love with any of them so I think his problems are more about him and less about his Mormonism right now.

ABERNETHY: What’s been the role of religious conservatives in the republican campaign?

DIONNE: Well I think religious conservatives have been fragmented in this election. I think they kind of wanted to rally behind someone and it’s, their situation is much like that of other conservatives in the party, te- including Tea Party conservatives where a potential champion, for example Rick Perry, who soared in the polls after he got into the race and looked like he might be the person who could unite Tea Party conservatives, religious conservatives and other kinds and then had a whole series of problems and then he sort of collapsed again. Michele Bachmann was a favorite of some of them for a while. Now Newt Gingrich has picked up some of that support. So think that, you know, this election has been different say than the last one where a very large number of religious conservatives rallied behind Mike Huckabee some I think for anti-Mormon reasons but other simple because Huckabee was an Evangelical leader.

LAWTON: Well, but I think that it took them a while last time around for them to rally behind Mike Huckabee, which was one of his frustrations and that’s been the case this time around too that they haven’t been able to coalesce around one candidate and they are very important in this primary season as we’ve said. Last time around about 40 percent, more than 40 percent of all GOP primary voters were Evangelicals and in early states like Iowa and South Carolina that goes to 60 percent. And so if want to be the GOP candidate, you’ve got to get a significant number of those votes. And yeah, there’s something about that they haven’t done around Mitt Romney. Some of them like Ron Paul so-

DIONNE: It’s very interesting the first three states, you’ve got Iowa where the caucuses have a very high white Evangelical participation, then you’ve got New Hampshire which is a somewhat more secular and quite a bit more secular libertarian state and then you go back to South Carolina next which is again a place where Evangelicals are important.

ABERNETHY: 2011 was the 10th anniversary of 9-11, what do we know about U.S. attitudes toward Muslims and how has that changed over this time, Kevin?

ECKSTROM: They haven’t really gotten much better. I think that’s the simple answer. You saw this year about the hearings that Kim mentioned about radicalization on Capitol Hill, the brouhaha we’ve seen in the last couple weeks over a Muslim reality TV show. A lot, the anti-Muslim sentiment actually creeped up a little bit after Bin Laden’s death in May. A lot of people said well if we get rid of Bin Laden maybe people will feel better about Muslims and actually the opposite happened. So things continue to be tense I think what’s been really interesting to watch in the last couple weeks has been this kind of counter backlash to the Muslim reality TV show where Lowe’s, the hardware store, pulled its ads from conservative pressure and now everyone’s threatening to boycott Lowe’s ‘cause they, they don’t think that the show is getting a fair shake and that Muslims aren’t getting a fair shake. So there is a bit of sympathy I think to some degree for Muslims being under attack.

ABERNETHY: What do you make of the efforts going on in many states to whip of fear of Sharia, of Islamic law?

DIONNE: Well you know I think one of the disconcerting things that’s happened in attitudes towards Muslims is that overtime it’s become more of a partisan and ideological issue, which was not the case in the days immediately after 9-11, partly because President Bush made some very strong statements about Muslims being Americans, being our brothers and sisters but now you’ve seen this issue become more politicized so it tends to me in very conservative states, paradoxically often states with very, very small Muslim populations. But I think in a way that we are as a country trying to deal with Muslims as a new reality in our country in much the same way that we dealt with Catholic immigrants a hundred years ago or more as a new reality in our country. My colleagues at Brookings and the Public Religion Research Institute did a poll this year and we found overwhelming support for religious freedom and the rights of minorities – 9 Americans in 10 – but on particular questions about Muslims nearly half were uncomfortable with mosques in their neighborhood, nearly half thought that Muslim and American values are incompatible. A lot of the same things that are said about Muslims were said about Catholics, that Catholics owed allegiance to a foreign power, that they weren’t fully democratic. I take some of these numbers in a more positive way that you see quite a bit of movement toward toleration and embrace, but still some holding back I think it’ll take a long time. Younger Americans are much more open than older Americans.

LAWTON: And so much of many Americans views on Muslims and Islam have been tied to the war on terror. And so that’s an additional complication. That also then brings in foreign policy and lots of politics as well. So that’s been a complicating factor that many American Muslims are frustrated about – that they’re broad-brushed with a whole bunch of people around the world that they have nothing to do with.

ABERNETHY: The last U.S. troops from Iraq have been coming back. What do you make, what do you all make of the welcome that they’ve received and people’s feelings generally about the end of the Iraq War?

LAWTON: I’ve been surprised at the fact that prior to our entry into the Iraq War in the religious community this was a huge debate. Is this a just war? Should we be doing this? There were protests in the streets and now that’s it’s winding down I haven’t heard as much moral conversation from ethicists and religious leaders about what did it all mean now that it’s done and what did we leave behind? People were talking about do we have an ethical responsibility to that country and I don’t hear it being framed in that way and I found that interesting.

ECKSTROM: And I think it’s a very different reception of the troops coming home from Vietnam obviously got and I think a lot of people are happy about that. They’re proud that their veterans are coming home, but I’ve been surprised at how muted the reaction has been. I think along with what Kim has been saying it’s almost like you don’t know that it’s happening out there.

DIONNE: You know I’m struck by how on the one hand the reaction is very different than the reaction of World War II where we had a very clear victory, we announced it. On the other hand it’s also not like a Vietnam where we saw folks evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the embassy. I think Americans decided that they wanted to get out of this war several years ago and the Obama Administration decided that the only way to get out was in a slow and responsible way. So I’m not surprised by the quiet reaction, but you’re absolutely right, it is a reaction to the veterans and an appreciation is so much greater now. We did a terrible job as a country in sort of honoring the service of Vietnam veterans. It took us years to honor what they did for the country.

LAWTON: And we have seen a lot of religious involvement in working and ministering to some of these returning troops and you know not only some of those who were wounded physically but emotionally and spiritually, those wounds linger. And so I have seen a lot of religious energy put into that as well.

ABERNETHY: Kevin it’s been almost 10 years since the terrible scandal broke about the Catholic sex abuse of children. Where does that stand? Bring us up to date on that. What happened this year?

ECKSTROM: Well it had a couple things. One you saw this process enter the criminal justice system, the secular system. So you had a grand jury in Philadelphia indict a top church official for shuffling priests from one place to another. In Kansas City you had the first bishop ever criminally indicted for not reporting a known abuser. The other interesting thing that happened was it spread, in a way to Penn State. You know the church has long argued that it’s not just a church problem, that it’s a problem in schools and in universities and in boys scouts and wherever else. And this was the first big sort of example of that we saw. But what was what I think most interesting was mid-year the bishops put out a long anticipated report on what they called the causes and contexts of this problem, what went wrong basically. And they couldn’t really come up with a simple, you know, decisive answer. What they did essentially was the whole culture got off track in the 60s and the church got really swept up in that. And that’s sort of the big problem that they could point to, but there’s no single cause that they could find.

LAWTON: And the headlines on that were “Woodstock Made Me Do It” made them do it, and of course that’s not what the church wanted for PR.

ABERNETHY: And the media.

LAWTON: Well that was the media too, but still that was what some people took away.

DIONNE: And of course the problem on the scandal was not the 60s culture. I think what it created was a crisis of authority inside the church because a lot of the anger was not simply at the abuse itself as much as there was anger at that, but how long it took for the church to come to terms with it. But again the Penn State thing, the Penn State events suggest a very similar pattern of institutions being slow to respond.

ABERNETHY: What about immigration and the churches? What’s going on there, what’s been going on this year?

ECKSTROM: Well in Alabama you had one of these get tough immigration laws that was passed that took effect and the United Methodist bishop of Alabama.

ABERNETHY: And Arizona.

ECKSTROM: And in Arizona, but the Methodist bishop in Alabama said it is the meanest immigration law in the country. There were great fears that it would penalize churches for assisting immigrants whether they’re legal or not. Now certain parts of that law were thrown out and they’re on appeal so the churches right now are in the clear. But there’s a great concern in the religious community that their hands are being tied in their ability to minister to immigrants of one stripe of another.

ABERNETHY: Our time is almost up, but I don’t want it to run out without asking you as you look back on the year, what was the most intriguing story that you saw or one that got the least attention that should’ve gotten a lot more. Who wants to begin? E.J.?

DIONNE: What I was much taken by the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission on Peace and Justice’s critique of the economy that made you wonder is Pope Benedict going to show up at one of these encampments of Occupy Wall Street? Because it was a very tough critique of capitalism. It didn’t say get rid of the market system, but it raised a series of moral questions and I’d like to think and this has happened in other traditions as well, I’d like to think that we can have, at the end of this downturn and serious moral conversation about how you create and just and competitive economic system.

ABERNETHY: Kevin what do you, what do you see?

ECKSTROM: I was really struck by the sale of the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California. You had this institution that went bankrupt and I think it’s a microcosm of sort of the shifts that are going on in the American relig–

ABERNETHY: And It was a symbol of—

ECKSTROM: Protestant dominance. Yeah. And it’s symbolic of the shifts that are going on in the American religious landscape where white mainline aging Protestants are literally losing ground, literally, to Catholics primarily fueled by Hispanic immigration, it’s fascinating.

ABERNETHY: Kim?

LAWTON: I was struck by the number of religious successes I saw in the pop culture world. We had several books on the New York Times bestseller lists about heaven and hell including one that created a huge amount of controversy within the Evangelical community by an Evangelical pastor who had a more expansive view of who’s going to hell. We saw the Book of Mormon on Broadway sweeping the Tony’s. We had a movie called Courageous by a church in Georgia making over 33 million dollars and that’s still making money every day. And you know just stuff like that and of course who could forget Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos quarterback who make kneeling in prayer a sort of cultural phenomenon, generated a lot of controversy but still got a lot of people talking about the public display of religion.

DIONNE: And he won a lot of games.

LAWTON: Well…

ABERNETHY: Our time is up I’m sorry to say. Happy Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all our viewers and to Kevin Eckstrom, E.J. Dionne and Kim Lawton. I’m Bob Abernethy.

KIM LAWTON, Correspondent: For the Occupy Wall street protesters in New York’s Zuccotti Park, it’s become a familiar sight—religious groups offering spiritual and moral support.

VOICES AT SERVICE: We represent. We represent. The New York City communities of faith. The New York City communities of faith.

LAWTON: Growing numbers of leaders from across the religious spectrum have been supporting Occupy Wall Street’s protest against greed and economic inequity.

REV. MICHAEL ELLICK, Judson Memorial Church, NY: This is not just a jobs issue. This is not only a health care issue or a pension issue. This is also a spiritual issue of the nature of what has happened in the United States and how we function as a people together. And that is very, very, much a matter of moral concern, not only to my Christian tradition but to Islam, and to Judaism, to Buddhism.

LAWTON: There have been regular interfaith prayer services at the park. And religious groups are also providing practical help by donating tents, food and money. They’ve been opening their facilities to the protesters, giving logistical advice and helping to get the message out.

ELLICK: Churches are an excellent place to organize this kind of information because we’re under the radar of commerce or of government.

LAWTON: Many say there is a prominent spiritual dimension to what’s been happening. Inside Zuccotti Park is a makeshift community altar, where protestors of all faiths come to pray or meditate. In several cities, protest chaplains—many of them seminary students—minster to the protesters.

ERICA RICHMOND, Protest Chaplain: We are here to provide a religious presence. We are here to listen to people, to hear what’s on their hearts. And we’re here to pray with people. And people do come up to us and ask us to sit with them in prayer, because people are in crisis and that’s why we are all here.

LAWTON: On this Sunday, United Methodists led a communion service. Participants said concern for economic justice is a core teaching of their faith.

REV. K KARPEN, Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, NY: The Bible is all about just a fairer shake for people and God’s concern for all of God’s children, not just a small segment of the population.

LAWTON: Some religious conservatives have criticized the faith-based support of Occupy Wall Street calling it a 60’s style, leftist effort to redistribute wealth. The Family Research Council urged its members to pray that God would prevent what it called “these radical organizers from stirring revolution.” But faith leaders at the Wall Street protests deny any political agenda.

KARPEN: It’s a broad movement of religious groups to support what’s going on and really to support the conversation, not to take a particular side or another side, but just to say these are the things that we need to talk about.

And they say it’s only going to spread.

ELLICK: What’s very, very real is the frustration. And if people don’t think that’s real, if people don’t think that reflects a real existential reality for the majority of Americans, the faith communities see it. Because we are who they come to when mom can’t pay rent, when the immigration officers steal grandma and there’s no one home. I mean, we’re who they come to. So for us it is an obvious, immediate, moral imperative.

I’m Kim Lawton reporting.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: As the so-called Arab Spring spread out from Egypt and Tunisia, the New York film makers Oren Rudovsky and Menachem Daum were in Israel listening to the hopes and concerns of Palestinian Arabs and Israelis. Here is a sample — unscientific but still revealing.

SHMUEL GROAG (Israeli Architect): The revolution in Egypt, the first reaction of the Israeli public was kind of being in panic as if, you know, you see democracy on one side and people are panicking.

SHWECKY (Israeli Environmentalist): Listen, the situation is not good for us or for them, because there won’t be a strong leadership, and we are the ones who have to be strong or else they’ll wipe us out.

DAFNA: (Israeli Sociologist): I understand the fear of Muslim Brothers, but it doesn’t seem that’s what people in Egypt or in Tunisia want. They really want freedom, and I think we should trust them on what they want. They want to live properly. They want to have jobs. They want to live like everybody else.

ROBBY: (Israeli Founder of Organ Donor Society): I think we need to focus on democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, and hope in the marketplace of ideas that tolerance of other people in the region will play out to Israel’s benefit.

SHEIK NAMIR: (Palestinian Historian): The Palestinian people have had a lot of problems. Every time an event like that happens in an Arab country it’s good for Palestine. Every flag raised calls for the liberation of the Palestinian people, and we’re witnesses to that.

TAHU: (Palestinian Poet and Elder): We are now in front of a bright, new beginning, hopefully. Look at the Europeans. They are supporting the Libyan people, not their rulers. Before they used to side with the rulers. Now everybody knows the truth and feels sorry for the Palestinian people and all other people who are oppressed by their governments, as if they were imprisoned.

JALAL AKEL (Palestinian Businessman): All this will have an impact on the Palestinian youth, who will be affected by the events in the Arab world. Now they can claim back their freedom the same way they see it happening in Egypt and Tunisia and hopefully soon in Libya.

DAFNA: You know, something is changing, and I don’t know but I think it will come here. It’s very difficult to believe that the whole Arab world will be in riots and Jerusalem and the West Bank are going to be quiet.

ABERNETHY: The Palestinian Bureau of Statistics has released figures showing that in the area between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, there are 5.5 million Palestinians, and 5.8 million Jews. Because of their higher birth rate, the number of Palestinians is expected to equal the number of Jews in about three-and-a-half years.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: Pro-union protests in Wisconsin spread to other states this week as legislatures consider measures that would limit pension obligations and collective bargaining. The demonstrations have sparked a national debate over budget responsibilities and justice for workers. Many in the religious community are actively supporting the labor movement, although some people of faith argue that fiscal responsibility is also a moral priority.

We have analysis from Kim Lawton, managing editor of this program, and Kevin Eckstrom, editor of Religion News Service. Kevin, welcome to you both, a lot of religious involvement in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

KEVIN ECKSTROM (Editor, Religion News Service): Yeah, you’ve really seen, I think, in the last couple weeks a revival of this message from religious groups that we haven’t heard in a long time, this sort of solidarity with workers and with union rights. You know, with all the talk in recent years about abortion and gay marriage and health care even, we haven’t heard much about unions from many churches, especially the Catholic Church, which has been a longtime supporter of organized labor.

ABERNETHY: Long tradition of support of labor.

ECKSTROM: Right, and that’s really come back this week.

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly): And I think that’s surprised a lot of people, because the church, the Catholic Church, had been perceived as really focusing more on issues like abortion, and so to see them come out and take a stand to say, yeah, we understand there are tough budget decisions, but workers’ rights and human dignity and the common good of all, including workers, is important, and the ability to organize is also a moral value, and that’s what the bishops were saying.

ABERNETHY: But it’s been more than the Catholics, of course. It’s been lots of denominations represented in Madison.

ECKSTROM: That’s right. You had a lot of rabbis actually out marching with the workers in Madison. You had Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, the whole gamut. One of the leaders in Wisconsin from the United Church of Christ, I think, put it pretty well when he said we all understand that we’re going to have to make tough budget cuts. The question is how those cuts are going to be made and whether the people who are affected, and in this case public employees, are going to have a seat at the table. That’s really what they’re fighting about.

ABERNETHY: But Kim, the moral arguments go both ways, don’t they? I mean, there are strong moral arguments for not having a deficit.

LAWTON: Well, and that’s become a growing issue especially for religious conservatives—talking about these deficits as a moral issue. The Bible says don’t be in debt, and therefore that’s how they’re arguing. You haven’t seen, I haven’t seen a lot of religious conservatives out there right now going against the unions per se, but they are very much focusing their arguments on this, you know—the morality of the budget.

ABERNETHY: How representative do you think the people are who are protesting, both sides, of their rank-and-file?

ECKSTROM: Well, I think, you know, you always have to be careful about a division between the hierarchy—you know, the bishops and the archbishops who come out and make these statements—and the folks in the pews, and I have friends in Wisconsin who are no friends of the labor unions, but yet their bishop is out speaking in favor. So whenever you have public statements like this you have to be—you have to remember that what is said in the pulpit doesn’t always necessarily flow down to the pews.

LAWTON: And it’s interesting, because I think there are some politics involved in here as well.

ABERNETHY: Oh, yeah.

LAWTON: And so—and the unions do have a certain political reputation, and so for some people in the pews they’re more used to that, and so this talking about it as a moral issue is a new thing. You know, I was also struck by something else that’s been going in all of these—the rallies, and there’s talk of nonviolent civil disobedience and organizing. A lot of these faith-based people who are doing this are really, they’re specifically calling back to the legacy of Dr. King in the civil rights movement and this notion of the faith groups, and including a lot of Jewish leaders, really providing a pastoral underpinning for this protest, and it’s interesting they are drawing a lot of parallels. Somebody said “Wisconsin’s our Selma,” and so that’s a development I’m watching.

ECKSTROM: One of the chants they’ve been saying is, “This is what religion looks like,” as they’re out there at the State Capitol chanting and protesting. That, to them, this is faith-based action.

ABERNETHY: Kevin, many thanks, and Kim.

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BOB ABERNETHY, host: As the crisis in Egypt continued to unfold this week, many questions emerged about the religious implications. What role will religion play in a new government, and in particular, what role will the Muslim Brotherhood play? How will the new situation in Egypt affect the rest of the Middle East, including Israel and the peace process, and how will Egypt’s Christian minority fare? We explore all this with Qamar-ul Huda, a senior program officer at the US Institute of Peace. He’s a consultant in many parts of the Middle East on conflict resolution. Dr. Huda, welcome.

QAMAR-UL HUDA (Senior Program Officer, US Institute of Peace): Thank you.

ABERNETHY: In the demonstrations in the streets there wasn’t much evidence of a religious influence. It seemed pretty secular, but lots of people expect that in a new government there will be strong religious representation. Is that fair to say?

HUDA: That’s a fair assessment. We know that the mass protest in Egypt is a mass public crossing all ideologies. This is a national issue for Egypt, and it’s not contained to any one group. The new government or the transitional government that will be formed in the near future—I think the religious voices or the religious parties will be at the table but will not dominate the party.

ABERNETHY: Now there’s a lot of fear around, as you know and have read, about the Muslim Brotherhood—what it is, what it means, what its place might be in a new government, and what the implications of that are.

HUDA: Well, the Muslim Brotherhood is almost seven decades old, and it’s basically a group that reacted to a secular nationalist movement in Egypt. It’s—right now it’s been regulated to do mainly social welfare and social services.

ABERNETHY: Is it what you would call a radical Islamic group?

HUDA: I think there are fringes of the Brotherhood that had radical groups and voices. They’ve been, I think, mostly eliminated under Mubarak in the ’90s. Right now it’s a very small group that’s mismanaged but also has very little influence as we speak today.

ABERNETHY: And in a new government, whatever the name of it, you would expect there to be religious representation, and what does that mean? What does that imply?

HUDA: I think that what that means is that the religious representatives will try to push for more Islamic values in the government, perhaps more Islamic teachings and ethics in schools, and perhaps have law to represent more Islamic values, but I don’t think they’ll have any real influence in the beginning, because the concern is now constitutional reform and unemployment.

ABERNETHY: And what about the religious minorities, especially the Christians, the Copts? There are ten million, about, of those?

HUDA: Yes.

ABERNETHY: What would be the outlook for them?

HUDA: Well, at this time we know they are participating with the protests. They are looking for a change in Egypt. I think right now they are most likely positioned to take part in the government, and we’re hoping and many people are hoping there will be a more pluralistic government that will embrace the Christian Copts.

ABERNETHY: They might even have a place in the government?

HUDA: I think they will.

ABERNETHY: Well, what about Israel and the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians? What are the implications of that whoever makes up the government, the new government in Egypt?

HUDA: Yes, I think this is the big question and the big concern for many of the Western thinkers and analysts. What will happen to the treaty signed with Israel? What is the security risk for Egypt? But for what it seems like that right now the government, the transitional government will take care of internal matters but also may be—stay with international treaties that it signed with Israel. There’s no indication that radical Islam will come to the forefront, and there’s no indication that it will abdicate with current treaties.

ABERNETHY: And what about between Egypt and the US?

HUDA: Well, it’s looking like on the streets there’s some discontent with Western forces and American influence in terms of its delay in moving the regime out. But I think Egyptians are very positive with their alliances with the West, and I think they will continue with those alliances.

ABERNETHY: Dr. Qamar-ul Huda from the US Institute of Peace. Thank you.

HUDA: Thank you for having me.

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BOB FAW, correspondent: Even today, nine years later, what happened at the Twin Towers horrifies, wounds, inflames.

SALLY REGENHARD: Our loved ones’ blood really consecrated that site forever and ever.

FAW: Sally Regenhard’s only son, 28-year-old firefighter Christian, a Marine, aspiring writer, and avid rock-climber, was killed on 9/11. No trace of him has ever been found.

REGENHARD: My son was a saint who was murdered by sinners.

FAW: Among the more than 2700 killed in Lower Manhattan that day was firefighter Bill Burke, who got his men safely out of the doomed towers before he perished.

MICHAEL BURKE: He got Engine 24 and the civilians they saved out. A fireman who worked for him said Bill Burke led the best of the best. He was better than all of us.

FAW: Nothing is more hallowed than Ground Zero for relatives like Regenhard and Burke.

BURKE: There’s just a sense of sanctity to the site that’s being offended here.

FAW: Ironically, Muslims proposing that 13-story cultural center on Park Place two blocks from Ground Zero insist they are trying to honor the site. Daisy Khan is director of the American Society of Muslim Advancement and wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, organizers of the project.

DAISY KHAN: We’ve been in the neighborhood for 27 years. It’s our neighborhood that got attacked, and it’s our obligation and our responsibility and really even our honor to rebuild it.

FAW: Daisy Khan insists that the center, which will include an arts theater, a place for prayer, athletics, and education, will be a testimonial to healing and interfaith harmony.

KHAN: The extremists have defined the agenda for the global Muslim community, and we wanted to amplify the voices of the ordinary Muslims who are, you know, law-abiding citizens, and it was my way of, like, helping rebuild by building a center that would create a counter-momentum against extremism.

REGENHARD: I want to make it clear that I and my—members of my group do not have anger towards Muslims. But it’s too close, it’s too painful, it’s too soon. I’m still trying to find remains of my son.

BURKE: It amounts to an insult. It comes across as intentionally provocative.

FAW: Proponent Khan, though, has drawn a line in the sand, arguing that being forced to move the site elsewhere amounts to “surrender.”

KHAN: I think it would be un-American to ask anybody to leave the neighborhood. We’re part of the neighborhood. I don’t think anybody should be driven out of their neighborhood. It’s about acceptance. Muslims are not being accepted as equals in this country yet.

MOSQUE PROTESTER: No mosque, not here, not now, not ever.

FAW: Indeed, throughout the country there are recent signs of what some call Islamophobia. Nearby, on Staten Island, an abandoned Catholic convent was to be sold to Muslims to build a mosque. But after much protest the board of the church that owned the convent voted the sale down. In Columbia, Tennessee a mosque was fire bombed. In Murfreesboro, Tennessee, vandals targeted equipment being used to build an Islamic center. And in Temecula, California the site of a proposed mosque brought forth both sides of the debate.

MANGO BAKH: Islam is not a religion. Islam is a totalitarian, terrorist ideology.

JENNIFER EIS: There is nothing to fear from them. They are our neighbors, and they want to be able to worship freely, just as our ancestors did.

FAW: Against that backdrop is it any wonder that a prominent anthropologist who’s recently completed a landmark study of Muslims in America concludes the Muslim community feels “under siege”?

AKBAR AHMED (American University): Americans are really going through a time of uncertainty, of some fear and some anger, and they want to blame someone, and in times like this that’s why you’re sitting on a tinderbox. It’s very easy to then suddenly target or make a community a scapegoat, so even something as simple and ordinary as constructing a house of worship becomes an act of defiance, controversy, debate.

FAW: The debate over that proposed Muslim cultural center here, so close to Ground Zero, has been framed as a choice between religious tolerance and honoring the dead. But some would argue the real question is not the Constitution but sensitivity—that given what happened on 9/11, shouldn’t moral claims take precedence over legal rights?

THANE ROSENBAUM (Fordham University Law School): The legal issue’s clear. There is a right to free speech, and there’s a right to the exercise of one’s religion. We have that. Now what? What happens in situations where the exercise of that free religion, right, is going to trample upon the profound sensitivities of an already vulnerable, traumatized group?

FAW: Thane Rosenbaum, a professor at the Fordham University Law School, says the relevant precedent is 1984 when, 40 years after World War II, Holocaust survivors objected to a Carmelite convent proposed near Auschwitz and Pope John Paul intervened and moved the building elsewhere. That kind of compassion, says Rosenbaum, should prevail at Ground Zero.

ROSENBAUM: This isn’t about bigotry. This isn’t about religious persecution. This really is about sensitivity and a profound sense of loss. There’s something that just doesn’t feel right about the haste, the speed, the urgency with which their mosque must be there. I don’t see the tolerance in that. It seems to me the tolerance there is only one-way tolerance: religious liberty and freedom at all costs.

FAW: In the midst of all the turmoil, some relatives of 9/11 victims—it is difficult to say just how many—do support the cultural center near Ground Zero. On that terrible day nine years ago, Herb Ouida was working on the 77th floor of one of the towers, while his 25-year-old son, Todd, was on the 105th.

HERB OUIDA: I said, “Have a great day, sweetheart.” I tell you those words because those were my last words to my son.

FAW: A son, he remembers, who overcame a long battle with anxiety to go on and graduate from the University of Michigan and have a bright future in finance.

OUIDA: I think religious tolerance honors those that were lost. What we’re saying for the Muslim world is we don’t trust you, we don’t like you.

FAW: We don’t want you.

OUIDA: We don’t want you, and that’s exactly a victory for al-Qaeda. I don’t want to give them that victory. I don’t want to give them that victory. I’d rather say to them, “We stood by what we believe in, despite what you did to us.”

FAW: Daisy Khan says most 9/11 families agree with Herb Ouida and support the Islamic center. But for relatives like Sally Regenhard, the refusal of those backing the Islamic project to consider another site is just one more indignity.

REGENHARD: You can never change hearts and minds by shoving your culture or religion down the throats of others. I think they need to understand that.

FAW: With both sides so entrenched, the outcome is uncertain. What is clear, though, is that this dispute is about far more than location or real estate.

OUIDA: I’m just afraid that we—that there’s something we’re unleashing here, something that we won’t be able to control if we don’t stop it.

AHMED: I think there’s a bigger crisis taking place right now, and that is really the battle for American identity itself. What is the America that’s going to come out of this?

KHAN: Are we going to erode our ideals, or are we going to continue to live up to our ideals and let this moment be a passing moment, and let this be the test, the litmus test?

FAW: It is much more than a litmus test, though, for some whose wounds may never heal.

REGENHARD: Right now we’re asking for sensitivity, and maybe my son could have accepted what’s happening now, but we mere mortals—we cannot.

FAW: In the midst of enduring pain, shrill protests, and calls for compromise, then, a head-on collision between legal and moral rights in a debate which could determine in post-9/11 America whether tolerance is a two-way street.

For Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly this Bob Faw in New York.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: There is still no generally agreed figure on the human cost of September’s crackdown in Myanmar on Buddhist monks and others protesting dictatorial rule. The military government says ten people were killed and nearly 3,000 detained, of whom most have been let go. But diplomats and other observers say the death toll is much higher. We have a report today from Lucky Severson on Myanmar refugees in Thailand describing what happened to them and what the likely consequences may be of the persecution of the monks.

LUCKY SEVERSON: The exodus from Myanmar, formally and more widely known as Burma, continues. Here, it’s across the Moei River on the Thailand border. For such a closed country, crossing the frontier in this area seems surprisingly easy. Inside Myanmar, it’s a different story. Hlaing Moe Than said he had to sneak through 21 military checkpoints before he finally made it out a few days ago. Moe is a dissident leader who has been imprisoned twice and tortured.

HLAING MOE THAN: They treated me very cruelly and very brutally. I was beaten many, many times in the prison for no apparent reason.

SEVERSON: Bo Kyi heads a political prisoners association. He says there are at least 2,000 Burmese who took part in the September uprising still in prison, and about half of those are monks. That doesn’t count the thousands of citizens already locked up.

BO KYI: They beat monks and then they torture monks. They did many, many mistakes but this mistake is really, really big one.

DAVE MATHIESON (Human Rights Watch): Most people in the country never liked the army to start with.

SEVERSON: Dave Mathieson is with Human Rights Watch, and he says the protests that resulted in a military crackdown may ultimately bring down the military.

Mr. MATHIESON: And now they certainly hate them for what has happened. These were very serious developments.

Mr. MOE THAN: The monks are in the higher level, over the people, you know. In our religion, we have three treasures: Buddha, the Buddha speech, and the monks.

SEVERSON: So when security forces attacked monks, it was the same as attacking Buddhism itself.

Mr. KYI: Therefore, many people, the majority of the people involved believe they will go to hell when they die.

SEVERSON: The military has kept a tight grip on the country since it mounted a coup in 1962. In 1988, the generals killed thousands when they snuffed out a democracy movement and arrested its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. She’s been kept under house arrest for most of the years since, while her countrymen suffered in silence.

It’s a powerful army, over 400,000 soldiers. That’s about the same as the number of monks who serve in a wonderland of pagodas and temples. About 80 percent of the 42 million citizens are Buddhists, and virtually every young man serves some time as a monk. Buddhism in Burma is more than a religion. It is a revered way of life. One of its principles is that suffering is necessary part of life. The military, under the generals, have caused ample suffering, or as the Buddhists call it, “dukkha.”

The Orwellian atmosphere is one example. Regime spies are everywhere, especially in the numerous coffee shops. Citizens cannot travel within the country without official permission. The government controls almost every aspect of life.

The military has embarked on a major road building project and has been accused of using slave labor to do their work. There is a tenet of Buddhism called “dana,” which is the act of giving without getting a reward. The generals say their unpaid workers have simply been practicing dana. Soldiers have also driven thousands of families, many of them Christian, from their villages into the countryside, where there is little food and shelter and no medical care.

In order to legitimize their rule, the generals told the people they were there to protect Buddhism. They built many new pagodas and gilded old temples. They also lavished money and perks on leading monks.

Mr. MATHIESON: There’s been a major process in the last 19 years to basically buy off and purge the senior leadership of the monks — to actually put in “yes men” and people who are very close to the military.

Mr. KYI: They want to use monks for their power.

SEVERSON: There are no teachings in Buddhism about how to revolt against unjust rulers. But the monks are the only institution in Burma influential enough to challenge the military.

Mr. KYI: Usually monks are not political people. So they’re never involved in party politics or any kind of party politics.

SEVERSON: The monks themselves have long been divided over the role they should play with regard to the military. Some believe in a monastic quest for enlightenment or nirvana through meditation. Others are motivated by Buddha’s decree to “wander for the welfare of the many.” It was the welfare of the many that eventually sparked the protests in Rangoon. This monk should know. He was there. To protect himself, he asked us to hide his identity.

He says his country was becoming poorer and poorer, and the monks could no longer ignore the situation. Also, the monks themselves were getting hungry. And in a country where two out of five children under the age of five are malnourished, pictures of Senior General Than Shwe’s daughter’s lavish, diamond-studded wedding did not go down well.

Mr. MATHIESON: There is his daughter dripping with diamonds and jewels from her rings and this huge reception in Rangoon. That infuriated a lot of average people because it really did show that this is a privileged class.

SEVERSON: The last straw was when fuel prices practically doubled overnight. Not long after, students hit the streets. Then the monks joined in and began to lead the protests. People got angry when security forces treated the monks with cruelty.

A few days later, Burmese television showed a huge rally in support of the military. But most of those people showed up to avoid paying an 80-cent tax which they would be forced to pay if they didn’t show up, according to Dave Mathieson with Human Rights Watch.

Mr. MATHIESON: And these mass rallies that they have are really meant to impress the rest of society. But also, I think, in a very clumsy way they’re meant to impress international opinion that, you know, here is this mass support for military rule. And most of the people I’ve spoken to that go to them just say, you know, it means we don’t have to pay not to go.

SEVERSON: Monks here are attending a birthday party for a dissident who is now in prison. His name, literally translated, means “conqueror of kings.” The mug shots, and there are many, tell of other Burmese who are imprisoned. Moe Than says the generals will suffer a worse fate.

Mr. MOE THAN: They go to hell surely. The worst hell in our religion we call a “wha zie” — the worst hell.

SEVERSON: What the monks want is not necessarily democracy. What the monks want is reform. They want the generals to practice the principles of Buddha.

Mr. KYI: They have the power to teach the government how to live, how to rule the country. Also, according to the Buddha doctrine, also they have to follow some principles: not to torture to anyone; not to lie. Also to love the people, to give loving kindness to others. If they follow Buddha doctrine, the country will be at peace.

SEVERSON: But convincing the military to love the people may be a hard sell.

Mr. MOE THAN: We have already determined to increase our peace protests until we are a success. So the world will see more bloodshed in Myanmar, and the West will hear more and more sorrowful stories.

SEVERSON: If the regime is thrown out, most observers say it will be because of what they did to the monks.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson.

The sangha, the community of Buddhist monks, played an important role, second only to that of students, in the democracy movement of 1988. In Mandalay, for example, it is widely believed that the participation of thousands of monks, manning the barricades and providing security, prevented that city from descending into the anarchy witnessed in Rangoon and elsewhere in the country at that time.

Since the failure of the 1988 movement, the military enacted a number of institutional measures that successfully hindered students’ capacity to organize politically. This included the suspension of classes for long periods and permanently emptying the main urban universities, and in their place requiring students to attend newly built satellite campuses in isolated rural areas.

Such measures could not be enacted easily with respect to the Burmese sangha, given its organization and ubiquitous presence throughout the country, from rural monasteries in virtually every village and town to the large monastic colleges of Rangoon and Mandalay. This country-wide array of institutions represents a network of communication and cooperation that typically transcends regional and ethnic differences and traditionally has always been an avenue by means of which monks could quietly organize, whatever the purpose. While institutional matters pertaining to the sangha are overseen at the national level by the central government’s Ministry of Religious Affairs, sangha loyalty and political sentiment remains naturally wedded to those of its principal donors, in this case everyday citizens, most of them poor — farmers, laborers, government servants, petty merchants, and so on, most of whom also intensely dislike the current regime.

As of Wednesday (Sept. 26), the news broadcasts are reporting that the Burmese government has begun to crack down on the monk-led demonstrations. Doubtless security forces will be able to suppress this outbreak of political expression with force as they have done so many times before. But will the military junta ever succeed in wooing the sangha from its ties with ordinary people and turn it into a willing instrument of religious-political legitimation in this devoutly Buddhist country? Perhaps the generals themselves do not believe so. At the base of the Shwedagon Pagoda, prominently placed and gorgeously decorated, one can find a specially built ordination hall reserved for the sons of military families, a ritual space for creating new monks, and in this case perhaps a new religious caste in this otherwise casteless religion of the Buddha.

– Patrick Pranke teaches Asian religions at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, where his area of specialization is Burmese Buddhism.

Socially engaged Buddhism has added a significant voice to public discourse in Asia since it developed after World War II. Its concrete efforts to translate Buddhism into a means of positive social change for the benefit of all living beings has resulted in numerous and highly successful projects for social and environmental justice. Socially engaged Buddhists in Asia have produced initiatives for health care in poor areas, for peace building in conflict areas, and even for interreligious cooperation on a global scale.

These successes, however, have taken place in developing and developed countries that respect human rights and religious freedom, such as Sri Lanka, Thailand, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. In countries where freedoms are tightly controlled by central governments, these successes have, by and large, not happened. This is true of Myanmar.

For the near future, I expect the government of Myanmar to block the monks in their monasteries and repress any demonstrations by the Buddhist laity. The result of the demonstrations will be failure.

In the long run, however, dialogue between the monastic leaders and the government may lead to positive changes. This is now happening in China, where engaged “humanistic Buddhism” is working with the government to address social and environmental issues of concern to all Chinese. Since the Chinese government is a close ally of Myanmar, my hope is that they will encourage the Myanmar government to engage in dialogue with Buddhist leaders for the good of the country and region.

– Donald W. Mitchell is a religious studies professor at Purdue University and the author of BUDDHISM: INTRODUCING THE BUDDHIST EXPERIENCE (Oxford University Press).