Journalists are trained to react to major news stories in a very particular way. A voice inside your head is supposed to say, no matter how earth-shattering the news: What happens next?

Continuing with that line of thinking, in the wake of the news that President Donald Trump and his wife Melania have tested positive for COVID-19, journalists will be asking: What is the next story? And, in particular, how does this affect my beat, the topic that I cover day after day.

You may have seen those mock headlines about the end of the world? What’s the headline at The New York Times for this religion story? "God says world to end tomorrow (story and analysis on page B11)." Or how about USA Today: "WE’RE DEAD!" The Washington Post: "World to end tomorrow; Polls look bad for GOP." The Wall Street Journal: “Stocks are down, market closing early tomorrow.”

Right now, there are political-beat reporters who are being tempted to tweet: “Take that, all of you white evangelicals.”

Surely it says something bad — about me and our times — that the SECOND thing I thought of was this: Blue-checkmark journalists are going to be tempted to show their stuff on Twitter. The THIRD thing was: Brace yourselves for some really bad “thoughts and prayers” wisecracks.

What was my first reaction? I hesitate to share it, since regular GetReligion readers are probably aware that I have been a #NeverTrump guy since his first announcement that he was running for president. I simply didn’t think he was qualified for the office, as a basic issue of temperament and political skills.

But, I confess that my first thought this morning was this: “God is not mocked.”

Yes, that’s a theological reflection and I need to stress that this is actually a pretty good scriptural reaction to all kinds of serious news events, as opposed to being a comment about Citizen Trump alone. For serious believers, that’s a comment about the state of the world — period.

Care for some context?

Year-beginner for 2017: Sarah Pulliam Bailey, and moi, see more battles over religious liberty

Ever since the 1980s, I have been telling editors and journalists that conflicts about religious liberty were going cause some of the biggest news stories on the American horizon.

Anyone who has been reading GetReligion since 2004 knows that I've been saying that, over and over. Amen If you listen to this week's "Crossroads" podcast, looking ahead into 2017, you're going to hear more about that. No apologies.

The roots of this concern run back to my graduate-school work in Baylor University's church-state studies program, where -- in 1977-78 -- we could hear the early rumblings of what would become Bob Jones University vs. United States case.

Why is that important? Do you remember this crucial moment in the U.S. Supreme Court Obergefell debates about same-sex marriage?

JUSTICE ALITO: Well, in the Bob Jones case, the Court held that a college was not entitled to tax exempt status if it opposed interracial marriage or interracial dating. So would the same apply to a university or a college if it opposed same-sex marriage?

GENERAL VERRILLI: You know, I, I don't think I can answer that question without knowing more specifics, but it's certainly going to be an issue. I, I don't deny that. I don't deny that, Justice Alito. It is, it is going to be an issue.

That's why religion-beat patriarch Richard Ostling, in his recent pair of memos looking ahead to 2017, stressed that religious-liberty cases -- linked to LGBTQ issues, again -- would remain on the front burner for major American newsrooms. Click here and then here for those two Ostling posts.

You can see the same themes again, over and over, in the recent "Acts of Faith" year-beginner piece at The Washington Post by religion writer Sarah Pulliam Bailey (yes, a former member of the GetReligion team). The headline: "Here’s what we think will be the major religion stories of 2017." Here is the overture:

The new year could be turbulent for religion in America.