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Clearly, the Anglican vs. Episcopal warfare is just getting started at the local level here in the United States, which means that more and more religion reporters are going to have to wade into this journalistic swamp in the weeks, months and years ahead.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, showed one of his more decisive moments on Tuesday by announcing that he would not invite two bishops — Gene Robinson of the Diocese of New Hampshire and Martyn Minns of the Convocation of Anglicans in North America — to the Lambeth Conference next year in England. The significance of his decision is captured well in reports by Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times, Julia Duin of The Washington Times and Rachel Zoll of The Associated Press.
As you can see in the video to the right, reporting on Scientology can drive a reporter to fits of rage. In the case of reporter John Sweeney, of the BBC’s Panorama, the fits were caught on video and, thanks to YouTube, became a sidebar.
As you may recall, I urged readers to let me know if there were any mainstream news updates on that strange event the other day at Grace Episcopal (or is that Anglican?) Church in Colorado Springs. I refer to the actions of 18-year-old Marcus Hyde, who attempted to hit Father Don Armstrong with a pie during a sermon on a rather timely topic: “Of Christian Love and Charity.”
You know things have gone a bit nuts when one of the hot stories of the week in conservative Episcopal circles (or is that Anglican circles now?) was whether police in Colorado Springs would investigate the motives (theological, political or otherwise) of any 18-year-old youth who tried (oh the humanities) to do a hit job on a leading conservative priest.
One of the hardest things to teach journalism students, I think, is to recognize the dangers present in what I called “buried pronouns.”
Gentle readers, I am going to have to ask your patience for a few minutes as the former copy editor in me rages a bit. However, I have no idea what is going on at the moment at The New York Times‘ copy desk when it comes to handling the tricky issue of formal titles for clergy.
Professional team switcher Jim McGreevey is back in the news. He’s the former New Jersey governor who was forced to resign amid charges of sexual harrassment from a male subordinate. McGreevey was married at the time and had been married previously but somehow managed to turn the bad news into a celebration of his newly revealed homosexuality. Now that’s how you spin, kids. He and his wife are divorcing and he plans to get hitched to his live-in male lover. McGreevey claimed, by the way, that he began an affair with his aide while his wife was recuperating in the hospital from a particularly hard labor and delivery. Classy.
Yes, yes, yes, your friends at GetReligion got all the emails. We know that you saw Corey Kilgannon’s story in The New York Times about the Rev. Louis Braxton Jr. and his ministry to the “tranny” streetwalkers of Astoria, Queens.
