Religion doesn’t figure highly in history or the news judging by a list ranking “the Top l00 Stories of the Century.”
The list project was sponsored by Newseum of Arlington, Va, and was compiled by 67 journalists and scholars As pointed out by Charles C. Haynes, director of the First Amendment Center, only seven of these stories had anything remotely to do with religious people or convictions. Those included focus on Nazi anti-Semitism, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches on civil rights, Ghandi’s movement for independence in India, the Scopes trial of the l920s, and the establishment of Israel in l948.
Not included were stories of Latin American liberation, the religious feminist movement, the transformations within Protestant and Catholic structures, among many others.
Haynes suggests this happened because such specialists view religion with some suspicion, and generally know little of its many expressions around the globe, reports the Scottsdale Tribune (March 13).
— By Erling Jorstad, RW contributing editor