Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The tributes to the late Deborah Howell continue, while I keep working on a Scripps Howard News Service column for this coming weekend focusing on her contributions — often behind the scenes — to religion-news coverage in mainstream newsrooms.
If, from the very beginning, your GetReligionistas have been complaining that the press does not “get religion,” we have also been complaining about the fact that the press does not devote enough attention to the religious left.
A long, long time ago, while doing my first round of graduate studies, I took a class that focused on contemporary cults, sects and religious movements and their impact on church-state law. Now before everyone goes nuts talking about what is and what is not a “cult,” please be aware that we were working primarily with doctrinal definitions (as opposed to focusing on some of the more controversial elements of sociology).
The Episcopal Church has less than half the membership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. But the former gets much more media coverage than the ELCA. But both are experiencing division under similar circumstances. Both churches have lost significant numbers of members in recent years, with congregations occasionally deciding to leave as a unit. And the problems in both churches deal with how the denomination interprets Scripture. The big fissures have been sparked by dramatic changes in church doctrine on sexuality.
I realize that it’s a bit strange to discuss a news story from the New York Post on this here weblog. That urban tabloid isn’t exactly the kind of institution that one associates with nuanced writing about a complex news topic like religion, let alone the fine points of liturgy.
Last Sunday, the Rev. Susan Slaughter was ordained to the priesthood in The Episcopal Church. This is newsworthy because her ordination took place in Ft. Worth. This is where things get a bit tricky. There are two groups purporting to be the Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth. That’s because most Episcopalians there left The Episcopal Church just about one year ago. Here’s how the Dallas Morning News put it at the time:
You can call me picky, but, hey, when it comes to messing with the fine points of Trinitarian theology, the Orthodox are known to be a bit picky. So please be patient with me for a moment.
What we have here is a story with two acts, but it’s a drama that James Davison Hunter would completely and totally understand. If you need help with that reference, please click here.
I began reading GetReligion back in the day because my brother Daniel Pulliam (former GetReligion writer extraordinair) set my home page to the site. Little did I know I would end up writing for tmatt & co. one day.
