Top Religion Stories of the Decade

Faith News: The Stories That Shaped the Past 10 Years

By Omar Sacirbey

The last 10 years in religion have been the most meaningful and turbulent since the 1960s, when America elected its first Catholic president, the Civil Rights Movement was being fought in the streets, and "Godless communism" was the enemy.

This decade is similar, yet in many ways more intense, more dismal, and maybe more hopeful. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 alone made this decade unique. America had never suffered an attack to its mainland, and pursued an unconventional enemy that claimed no country.

New barriers were falling as well, but not without resistance and conflict. Homosexuals could become religious leaders and get married in some countries, but were still being killed in others. Many Muslims in the West had fully integrated into their adopted societies, some even becoming congressmen or members of European parliaments, but others faced discrimination or were vulnerable to extremism.

Multiple and powerful forces worked on the United States and the rest of the world this decade, and at times, cruelty, intolerance and misunderstanding seemed to dominate. Yet dark days also inspired reflection, study, and interfaith fellowship, processes that helped the world survive and made it stronger going into the next decade.

Omar Sacirbey writes for Religion News Service and other outlets.

The Sept. 11 Attacks and the Evolution of Global Jihad

Carried out by 19 Muslim extremists who justified their actions as retribution for American crimes in Islamic countries, the 9/11 terrorist attacks were the climax of a global jihad. Al Qaeda became a household phrase, Americans felt vulnerable, and the world would never be the same.

9/11 also provoked the invasion of Afghanistan and more aggressive intelligence gathering and financial monitoring that weakened Al Qaeda. But rather than disappear, Islamic terrorism found new outlets--in the Iraq War, with militant groups in Pakistan, and among individuals and small groups.

The 9/11 attacks also spawned an unprecedented interest in Islam, galvanized interfaith work, and tested American tolerance. While anti-Muslim bigotry exists, backlash has been minimal.

Some assert that Islamic terrorism is not a religion story because the terrorists are not true Muslims whose beliefs are antithetical to Islam. That is true. Nevertheless, they act out of religious conviction. It may be more accurate to say this is a story about the abuse of religion.

The Death of John Paul II

When Pope John Paul II died on April 2, 2005, his 26-year reign was the second longest of any Pope, a tenure marked by unconventionality, unprecedented interfaith work, and the rise of the beloved Pontiff as a global superstar.

Karol Josef Wojtyla became the first non-Italian pope elected in nearly 500 years, and started his tenure by breaking with tradition and addressing the gathered faithful from the balcony above St. Peter's Square. This accessible demeanor was a hallmark of his papacy, during which he visited more countries than any pope before him.

He became the first pope to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp, a synagogue, Jerusalem, and the first to pray at the Western Wall, where he placed a letter asking forgiveness for crimes committed by Christians against Jews. Seeking to repair ties between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians, John Paul II became the first pope to visit Eastern Orthodox Countries--Romania, Ukraine, Greece--since the Great Schism in 1054. In another papal first, he visited the Ummayad Mosque in Syria, and made a speech calling on Christians, Muslims, and Jews to work together.

For all his interfaith outreach, Pope John Paul II remained staunchly conservative on other issues, such as abortion, contraception, and the ordination of women.

Pope John Paul's death was also important because of his successor, Pope Benedict XVI. While Pope Benedict has continued his predecessor's conservative stance on many issues, his first years as head of the Catholic Church have also been marked by tense relations with Muslims and Jews.

Homosexuality Divides the Faithful

Gay marriage and the ordination of homosexual clergy emerged as issues provoking anger, reflection, and ruptures in some of the most powerful religious institutions in the world. The single biggest rift came with the U.S. Episcopal Church's 2003 consecration of Bishop Gene V. Robinson of New Hampshire, who is in an openly gay relationship. Leaders of the 77-million member Anglican Communion warned of a schism, and in its Lambeth Commission on Communion report in 2004, imposed a moratorium on the blessing of same-sex unions. Disaffected Episcopalians broke off and formed the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. In 2009, Episcopalians voted to bless same-sex unions and ignore the Anglican moratorium on ordaining gay bishops.

In 2000, the United Methodist Church defeated a proposal permitting blessings of same-sex unions, and in 2004 defrocked a lesbian pastor from Germantown, Pa. Then in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI released his first major instruction, a long-awaited Vatican statement on homosexuality, barring those who are actively homosexual, have strong homosexual tendencies, or support gay subculture, from seminaries.

Gay marriage in the United States also became a major issue for religious organizations, as several states moved to legalize same-sex unions, some successfully and others not. Notably, the 2008 passage of Proposition 8, which banned same sex marriage in California, led to protests at Mormon churches because of the church's support of the proposition. As the decade closes, Uganda is on the verge of making homosexuality a capital offense, joining 37 other African nations where gay sex is already illegal.

Rise of the Global South

The controversy over homosexuality hastened a decades-long power shift in the Anglican Church and other Christian traditions, with Africa, Asia, and South America gaining numbers and influence, as those of Europe and North America recede. This shift is "as epochal as the Reformation itself," wrote historian Philip Jenkins in 2002.

According to a 2005 report by the Center for the study of Global Christianity, in 1900, 82 percent of Christians were in Europe and North America, and 19 percent of Christians were in Africa, Asia and Latin America. In 2005, Europe and North America accounted for 39 percent of Christians, compared to 60 percent in the Global South, which by 2050, will nearly triple Europe’s Christian population, 71 percent to 28 percent

But this story is about much more than numbers. Christians in the Global South are far more conservative, and inclined to supernatural beliefs that are rare in the North. And while they'd prefer unity, they don't need the North and aren't afraid to suggest schism. "Our understanding of the Bible is different from them," said Kenyan Bishop Benjamin Nzimbi. "We are two different churches."

Muslims in the West

Fears over Al Qaeda and the Taliban cast a spotlight on Muslims in North America and Europe, as their host countries sought to better understand this immigrant community. Some Westerners saw in their local Muslim population potential homegrown terrorists and others a vibrant, loyal community of law-abiding citizens. By mid-decade, the 2004 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim extremist, subway bombings in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, the latter carried out by young men raised in England, and riots by immigrant youths, many of them Muslim, in Paris, fueled the conventional wisdom that Muslims were far better integrated in multicultural America than in traditionalist Europe. This thinking was reinforced in 2003 by a French court decision to ban headscarves (and other religious gear) in school, a German court decision to allow states to prohibit Muslim teachers from wearing headscarves in the classroom, and a 2009 Swiss referendum in which voters decided to forbid the construction of new minarets.

Meanwhile, Minneapolis and Indianapolis elected the first Muslims to the U.S. Congress. However, several arrests of American-raised Muslims in the second-half of the decade for allegedly planning terrorist attacks cast doubt on the notion that American Muslims were immune to extremist callings.

Religious Repercussions from the Iraq War

While many wars have their religious dimensions, the Iraq War was especially remarkable because it produced three unique and serious religious repercussions: It set-off a bloody Sunni-Shia civil war, it fed the belief among Muslims that America was at war with Islam, and it highlighted divisions between the Religious Right and the Religious Left.

Although Iraq's Sunnis and Shias had coexisted mostly peacefully for centuries, the power vacuum created by the war set off a power struggle between the two groups, which was also exploited by Al Qaeda extremists, who consider Shias to be heretics deserving to be killed. The violence involved car bombs, death squads, suicide bombers, and attacks on mosques and shrines, and has left thousands dead.

While America's invasion of Afghanistan was accepted by Muslims as a justified reaction to the 9/11 attacks, the invasion of Iraq, preemptive and waged under dubious pretenses, was seen by many as a war against Islam. The Abu Ghraib prison scandal, the number of Iraqis killed in U.S. airstrikes, and several incidents involving U.S. soldiers who killed or raped Iraqi civilians reinforced the belief.

In the United States, the war also brought into sharp relief the differences between the religious right and the religious left. Both sides invoked scripture to support their positions, and were active in the war debate.

The Rise and Fall of the Religious Right

In his inaugural run for the White House, George W. Bush told Americans that his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ and went on to become what many call the most openly religious president in generations. His talk of good and evil and how praying and the Bible guided his decisions won praise from many conservative Christians, and worried less religious Americans.

To many observers, however, the real story was not the president but the "values voters" who put him in power. This was especially true in 2004, when record numbers of conservative evangelicals, motivated by issues such as abortion, school prayer, and homosexuality--gay marriage was on the ballot in 13 states that year-- turned out to vote.

The power of the religious right had important policy implications. Funding for stem cell research was cut, school prayer was encouraged, the security of Israel came to be considered a biblical imperative, and a skepticism of science downplayed global warming.

But as the Iraq War and the American economy worsened, many Americans, including many evangelicals, grew disenchanted with the conservative leadership. And ultimately, those disenchanted joined forces with progressive Christians and others to elect Barack Obama in 2008.

Rise of the New Atheists

While values voters injected religion into politics, belief in God was receding in other segments of American life, and atheists went on the offensive. According to the American Religious Identification Survey of 2008, the number of Americans identifying as Christians declined from 86 percent in 1990, when the first ARIS survey was conducted, to 76 percent in 2008. In that same period, the proportion of Americans who identified as having no religion nearly doubled from 8.2 percent to 15 percent.

While having no religion didn't necessarily mean not believing in God, a growing, or at least increasingly vocal, group of atheists did make an aggressive push for converts through books and organizations. Most notable among the "New Atheists" were authors Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion"), Daniel Dennet ("Breaking the Spell"), Sam Harris ("The End Of Faith"), and Greg Epstein, Harvard's humanist chaplain and author of "Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe." Several new atheist organizations emerged as well, including the United Coalition of Reason, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, which publishes the monthly magazine, the Skeptical Inquirer.

There were many measures of the new stature enjoyed by atheism, among them Obama's inauguration speech, in which he called America a "nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers."

Buddhist Activism in Myanmar and Tibet

The Saffron Revolution in Myanmar in 2007 and riots in Tibet in 2008 reminded the world that Buddhists continue to suffer at the hands of totalitarian regimes, that there is a distinction between pacifism and non-violence, and that both have their limits.

Students and political activists in Myanmar launched street protests over the country's dismal economic situation, but were quickly and harshly suppressed. When Buddhist monks, especially revered in this country of 50 million, entered the protests and refused to perform religious duties for Myanmar's generals, the regime blinked, but eventually ended the protests with a violent crackdown that included raids on monasteries.

The following year, in March, as China prepared to host the Summer Olympics, activists in Tibet seized the opportunity to protest Beijing's policies in the region, which they said included religious oppression of indigenous Tibetans and repopulating the region with ethnic Chinese to dilute Tibetan culture. Protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa turned violent, as some Tibetans attacked Chinese residents and burned their businesses and homes. Beijing accused the exiled Dalai Lama of masterminding the violence, which was quelled the same month. The Dalai Lama denied involvement, condemned the violence, and argued against an Olympic boycott.

Continued Violence in the Holy Land

In July 2000, Israelis and Palestinians came close but ultimately failed to strike a comprehensive peace deal.. Hopes to build on that near miss fizzled when Ariel Sharon, then a candidate for Israeli prime minister, visited the Temple Mount escorted by more than 1,000 Israeli policemen, and Palestinians responded by launching what became known as the Second Intifada. The situation worsened with Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli retaliation that claimed scores of civilian lives on both sides. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died in 2004.

In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip, drawing criticism from conservative Jews and Christians who assert that the land is part of Biblical Israel. In 2006, Ariel Sharon suffered a debilitating stroke, Hamas won Palestinians elections, and Israel invaded Lebanon to battle Hezbollah. Following incessant Hamas rocket attacks into Israel, Israeli jets and ground troops attacked Gaza in early 2009,resulting in war-crimes accusations against both sides. As the decade closed, Israelis and Palestinians were, by nearly every measure, significantly further away from a peace deal to end their decades of hostility than they were at the dawn of the decade.

Changing of the Guard in American Protestantism

The death of prominent Protestant leaders like Jerry Falwell and Oral Roberts, the fall of megachurch leader Ted Haggard, and the declining health of Billy Graham is opening the door for new Protestant leaders in America. It's more than a change in personalities, it's an evolution in policies.

Falwell and other founding fathers of the Christian Rights put defeating gay rights and abortion, and supporting prayer in school and the teaching of creationism at the top of their agenda, while also being suspicious of social welfare policies.

New Protestant leaders, such as Rick Warren, Joel Osteen, and Craig Groeschel, oppose gay marriage and abortion like their predecessors, but take a "hate the sin, love the sinner" point of view. And unlike their predecessors, they are more concerned about poverty, the environment, and HIV/AIDS. While some of the old guardstill exerts influence, most notably Pat Robertson and Billy Graham's son Franklin, the question remains "Who will emerge as leader (or leaders) of American Protestants for the new decade?"

Evolution vs. Creationism and Intelligent Design

Among several battles waged during the decade over the separation of church and state, a Pennsylvania district court ruled on December 20, 2005, that the teaching of intelligent design in public school biology classes violate the Constitution's First Amendment prohibition against the establishment of religion.

The battle began in 2004, when the Dover school board voted to require public school biology teachers to read aloud a statement in their classes that evolution is not a fact but a theory and that intelligent design is an alternative theory which students can pursue if they wish. In response, 11 parents of Dover students sued the school board for violating the First Amendment. In his decision, Judge John E. Jones III wrote that intelligent design is not science but religious in nature and the "progeny of creationism," and therefore unacceptable for teaching in public schools.

All eight school board members who pushed for the intelligent design requirement were defeated in local elections on Nov. 8, six weeks before the Pennsylvania court decision. In response, Pat Robertson warned, "If there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city."