Our founding managing editor, Kathryn Joyce, has a new book out that’s caused a worthy buzz this week.  The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption his shelves Tuesday.  Joyce writes about international adoption and the manufactured “orphan crisis” that is compelling some Christian families, denominations and agencies to pursue adoption at drastic cost.  You can buy the book here.  You can read excerpts here and here.  You can listen to interviews with Joyce here and here.  You can read reviews  here and here.  You can giggle at an irrational conniption and find sane commentary here and here.

Says the Vatican, via Greek-Melchite Archbishop Cyrille Bustros, to Jerusalem:

“We Christians cannot speak of the promised land as an exclusive right for a privileged Jewish people,”Bustros continued. “This promise was nullified by Christ. There is no longer a chosen people – all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.”

Scott Korb, our former books editor and author of the new book Light Without Fire: The Making of America’s First Muslim College has an op ed, with Suhaib Webb, at The New York Times today, “No Room for Radicals.”  They write:

Yet what’s most obvious to anyone who has spent time in these communities is that whether they are devotional or educational, focused on the arts or on interfaith cooperation and activism, this mediating set of American Muslim institutions is keeping impressionable young Muslims from becoming radicalized.

This month Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and most recently Hallucinations, spoke with Danielle Ofri, Associate Professor of Medicine and Editor in Chief of the Bellevue Literary Review about ethics in medicine and writing.  You can watch the interview here.

The Family Medicine Committee of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education has proposed dropping from their curriculum training on family planning and contraception.  At RH Reality Check, you can send them a letter telling them how ridiculous they’re being.

A veteran of the war in Iraq has decided to end his life by stopping eating and drinking.  Democracy Now! profiles Thomas Young.

From Women in Theology, a great post by Elizabeth on why women scholars need to “Keep Speaking Like a Woman.”

Bakary Sambe at Qantara.de about Mali the second class status of African Muslims.

Amanda Marcotte at Alternet on the ways Christian Churches are “trying to get hip with the kids.”

Tonight!: Don’t miss our last event of the semester, “Digital Judaism: Tablet to Tablet,” an event that closes out our two-year series on digital religion, thanks to a generous grant from the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion & International Affairs.  Owen Gottlieb, Rachel Wagner, Ayala Fader and Jeffrey Shandler will speak on a panel, moderated by our co-Director Faye Ginsburg.  5 pm at 19 Washington Square North.  Co-sponsored by NYU Abu Dhabi.

Today: The Family Medicine Committee of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education has proposed dropping from their curriculum training on family planning and contraception.  At RH Reality Check, you can send them a letter telling them how ridiculous they’re being.