Welcome. Im Bob Abernethy and this is our look ahead at the top religion stories we expect to be covering in 2013. We do this with the help of kim lawton, managing editor of this program, Kevin Eckstrom, editor in chief of Religion News service, and e. J. Dionne, a senior fellow at the brookings institution, a professor at Georgetown University and a columnist for the washington post. Welcome to you all. One of the big events of the new year will be the inauguration of barack obama to a second term, so we asked a wide variety of religion leaders what they hope for during the president s next term. If president obama would revert back to the, that young, powerful, firey spokesperson in the 2004 Democratic National convention who talked about reconciling the blue and the red state, about the god of the blue state and the god of the red state that i believe that he has a chance to really emerge as a transformative catalytic president reconciling our nation. We are more polarized today than ever before. Im hoping that he would be able to work, well that congress would be able to work with him to come up with a real budget thats going to help the least of these and because when you help those who are in the most vulnerable situation, you end up helping the whole country. Foreign aid is 1 of the budget and we talk about cutting that and thats a frightening thought. While some of us are eating at banquets while people are starving outside our door. Thats not right. To pass a comprehensive tax reform that would get rid of most of the deductions. Not charitable deductions however, charitable deductions are critical to civil society, but to eliminate a lot of loop holes and to bring about a bipartisan effort to get the government on a sound footing. The principal is youve got to protect poor and Vulnerable People as you find a path to fiscal sustainability. Both are moral issues. Its hard to overestimate the importance of getting healthcare to 40 or 50 Million People who did not have access to it before. Thats just huge and as the wealthiest nation in the world, not to have healthcare for all was just a profound embarrassment. As bishops weve been working on healthcare reform for years. Now there are issues about the healthcare reform thats been passed, the affordable healthcare act, that we have concerns about, one, some of the conscience issues. I hope he protects religious liberty. I hope he defends the right and protects the right and advocates for religious pluralism. The issue of Marriage Equality because i think hes already started to take that on in his First Administration and i just feel like were so close we can taste it. As we saw as evidenced in the past election with more and more states, thank god, passing legislation about Marriage Equality. We have a coalition of people of faith who are actually trying to get both the republicans and the democrats to have a conversation on immigration. The president did promise that he wanted to address it. Were hoping that congress can Work Together and this year we can come to an agreement on a more comprehensive Immigration Reform package. If we can solve the problem of israel and make sure that israel has a proper, proper nation with safe borders and so on and yet at the same time allow the palestinians to have their own state. If we can solve that one than many of the worlds problems in terms of interfaith dialogue will be resolved. Its very critical for america to have good reputation to have good liaison with the muslim world. We do hope that the president could maybe visit a mosque or attend an American Muslim Institution and really show that direct engagement, that hey, listen, you are part of the american framework and part of the building of this country. Were cautiously optimistic that the Obama Administration will finally allow sikhs to service in the u. S. Armed forces with their articles of faith in tact. It would be a very important and historic step. Wed like to see the Obama Administration take the lead in acknowledging and including nontheistic americans in the Decision Making process. Prolife issues are always a concern. Someone has to protect the innocent life and certainly we think our government ought to be able to do that. I also really hope and pray that in the Second Administration he takes on the issue of climate change. I think that unfortunately its become a politicized, highly contentious issue and that its not and its becoming more clear to us as the days go on that its something that we need to take on. Whatever can be done to make our children safer, including stopping availability of assault weapons and these magazines that can kill people, and having people able to get weapons without adequate background checks. Its really time to put an end to that. And i hope every parent in america calls for it. And when political leaders move, the religious community will be there to give it both moral sanction and political support. As a religious leader we always have religious hope and we expect the best of our political leaders and thats important for us to do now. I think its important for us to pray for our political leaders and to ask that they do the right thing. As those wishes indicated, there are a lot of tough issues that many people want washington to deal with, right away, all at once. But where to begin . Kim. That is a very full plate. In recent days, congress hasnt been that great about dealing with multitasking. I think because of the tragedy at the Elementary School in connecticut, there is a lot of momentum about gun control and taking up that issue right away. A lot of people in the religious community are really advocating on that and there is a ground swell. Some of that is the emotion over what happened and that is horrible. A lot of people are worried that it will fade. Then you have the fiscal issues which are there and really important. I think kim is absolutely right about guns. I think that we have, this is an occasion when we really can take steps that we havent been able to take for a long time, because a lot of people were so riveted and so deeply concerned by the death of all these children. So i think theyre, i hope we do something in that area. I think theres a real opportunity on Immigration Reform this year, partly because president obama won such an overwhelming share of the latino vote, he knows he owes something to that constituency but partly because republicans do not ever again want to get such a low share of the latino vote, and i think theres an opening there. And then i think president obama made a very central promise, which is we can get this economy to work again, not only for the best off among us, but also for the middle class and for the poor, and finding ways to promote shared growth. That involves education, it involves tax policy, it involves job training. I think that is the core promise of obamas second term and thats where hes gonna have to put a lot of attention. In your book, our divided political heart, you talk about our historic attention to individual matters and on the other hand, the community, the group. Do you see signs now in this climate that the gap between those two ideas can be narrowed . Well, i think historically we always have as a country. Weve always upheld both individualism and community as part of us, and i think what youve seen on the conservative politics, historically conservatives cared a lot about community as well as individualism and i think over the last two to four years, partly because of the tea party, youve had much more emphasis on the conservative side, on individualism, and i think since the election youve had sort of the compassionate conservatives that start to make a comeback, conservatives who say, we do need this balance, and so im looking, i think as a country, we essentially voted for balance and i think a lot of conservatives want to move their movement closer to it. And in the gun debate you have people talking about my right to bear arms and on the other hand the need to protect the community, so what youre talking about comes right down to the heart of this issue. Right. And with rights come responsibilities and i think that in the gun debate people are moving from purely a focus on dont ever touch anything having to do with my weapon, to wait a minute, we have obligations to others including those kids. Kevin, what do you see . Well, along this notion of, you know, who has to make the tough calls, in the budget debate, in the fiscal cliff and all of this, were facing a profoundly moral debate about whose responsibility is it . Do we balance the budget, make cuts on, you know, by cutting social programs for the poor . Do it we do it by keeping tax rates low for the rich . And ultimately we have to decide as a community who has to foot the bill to get us back on solid financial ground. And so theres a lot of religious groups have said, yes, we need to do something about our fiscal mess, but we cannot do it in an immoral way and we cannot do it in a way that punishes the people who can least afford it, and rewards the people who can. One of the things thats gonna be coming up is the realization more and more of whats in the obama Healthcare Plan as things begin to kick in. Who wants to pick up on that, on the requirement that, for instance, that groups offer contraceptive coverage . Well, thats gonna be very controversial and thats gonna come up again very early in this year because the mandate that came down from the Obama Administration that employers cover contraceptive Services Free of charge and that includes many faithbased employers, and so you had this coalition of Catholic Church and also a lot of evangelical groups saying, this violates our religious freedom. Many of them have filed lawsuits. The Obama Administration has tried to find a compromise. So far they hadnt found one that made people happy but there are a couple of deadlines this year and so theyre gonna have to revisit this issue and so thats something that is going to be argued out. Right. Go ahead, kevin. I was going to say, the courts are really the place to watch this because i think, as kim said, theres more than 30 lawsuits that have been filed about this and the very early ones that have come back, the courts seem to be fairly skeptical about the administrations ability to force a catholic institution, for example, to provide contraception. The bishops fought hard on this one. How does that leave their relationship with the white house . Well, thats exactly where i was going to go, because i think that in the wake of the election there were, i mean, first of all, the Catholic Church has been divided in its attitude toward president obama. The catholic vote split almost down the middle, very slight lead for obama largely because of his overwhelming strength among latino catholics. I think what you have among the bishops now is a sentiment that says, can we possibly work this out . We dont want to be in a state of war with the Obama Administration for four years. And i think within the Obama Administration you have quite a number of people who want to make sure they provide contraception coverage but dont want to be in a state of war with the church, and so i think there are going to be some real efforts to try to reach a compromise that both sides can live with, and i think thats also imperative because youre actually going to see the Catholic Church, along with a lot of evangelicals, working with the administration on Immigration Reform. I think that one of the most powerful parts of the coalition in favor of Immigration Reform are the christian churches, because latinos are such a growing part of both the protestant and catholic constituencies in america. Let me take you to things going on overseas, especially in the middle east. Not a lot was heard about this during the campaign but here we are. Syria is in terrible trouble. Its all around. Here at home even, interfaith efforts have been cancelled because people couldnt agree about what to do about israel and palestine. What do you see in the middle east . Do we have a moral obligation to intervene, for instance, in syria . Well, thats something that really surprised me. I think we were all so focused on the election last year and of course a lot of the candidates didnt want to bring it up because really tricky, difficult, difficult issues but ive been surprised by the lack of moral debate about this issue, not that im advocating that we intervene but im surprised that we, i havent heard a debate about it. We saw in libya people saying, but just its humanitarian intervention. There are people being slaughtered and children and dying and we have to do something to prevent genocide or to prevent all of these civilian deaths. Its happening in syria. We havent had that same kind of a public conversation. That surprised me. And certainly, you know, egypt is messy and israel and the palestinian situation, very tricky things that the religious community, as you suggested, very much involved in a lot of those issues. I think were a war weary country. Exactly. And i think that explains a lot of what happened, including what happened in the election. In the end mitt romney didnt want to pick big fights with barack obama on Foreign Policy and i think there are lots of people who look at syria and say, we really should do something about this, and then they say, but what can we do that will actually improve the situation and not get us inveigled in place and in circumstances that we dont want to be inveigled in . I do think its very troubling looking forward that we may be losing the opportunity to have a two state solution between israel and the palestinians. I think time really is running out on that and i think there is a lot of frustration in the administration over what can they actually do . And whether or not we can argue about what they did in the past, you know, i think a lot of people would like to do something but dont see what the promising path is right now. And there are lot of troops in afghanistan who perhaps would like to come home and a lot of people here who would like them to come up, but that seems to be something for the year beyond, 2014. Im wondering whether you think thats going to be advanced. I think a lot of people just want this over and i think a lot of people, when it comes to afghanistan, have kind of, not thrown up their hands, but i think theres an increasing acknowledgement that theres only so much that we can do there. Theres only so much that we can, quote unquote, win. So its gonna be, you know, a question, and what youre gonna see a lot of debates on is to what degree does religion play into the future of afghanistan . Whats the place of islam . Whats the place of womens rights and human rights . And at some point america has to basically step aside and let them figure it out for themselves, but its come at a very high, high cost. There was a, there was a situation in britain where the anglican church, the church of england, decided that women should not be able to be bishops. Yes. Continue their policy that theyve been having, yea. And a big backlash on that. Where is that gonna go . Eckstrom its a fascinating debate, to me. And what you have is a new archbishop of canterbury, justin welby whos gonna be coming in, in 2013, and he is a big supporter of women bishops, as is the government, the prime minster and, you know, the outgoing archbishop of canterbury. Heres i think why this debate matters. The church when it refused to allow women bishops was seen as stodgy, oldfashioned, out of step with the times, and the government has even said, you know what . Fix this. Get it right. Get on with it already. And if the church is unable to do that, if the church is unable to sort of meet the calls to be a modern egalitarian institution, its going to make it look even more and more irrelevant and, you know, britain already is an increasingly secular place. Now, what does that mean for us here at home . Obviously england and the United States are different places but europe is kind of on the vanguard of the secularism movement, and to the degree that their leading religious institution looks irrelevant or out of step with the times, i think that theres important lessons for us here about how religious groups and religious institutions accommodate themselves to the wider culture and one of the things that youre gonna see that on here at home, i think in 2013, is the gay marriage question, which is gonna be headed to the supreme court. So to what degree religious institutions can adapt to the larger culture is i think gonna be, theres gonna be a lot there. But for a lot of these religious institutions they dont adapt to the wider culture. You know, they take pride in saying, well, were counter cultural because we stand for what we believe is right, whether or not the culture agrees. And i think youre right. Thats where it really, you know. Thats where the tension is. The clash comes when you talk about gay marriage because for a lot of religious institutions this is a faith issue, an issue of morality. They see god ordaining marriages between a man and a woman and they look at the bible and say they believe homosexualitys a sin and so to have the culture sanctioning marriage in that way is a problem for them. Not everybody in the religious community obviously thinks that way. There are many people who say its equality and justice for gay couples so there should be gay marriage, but thats whats really interesting for some, the roman Catholic Church, evangelicals, how do they operate in a culture thats changing when their beliefs arent changing, at least in the core . And there is this fascinating issue within, if you will, global christianity, where what seems to be the case is, and anglicanism is a case in point, that social conservatives in the wealthy countries find themselves allied with