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The cover copy for the November Wired invokes the giddy atheist triumphalism of John Lennon’s “Imagine”: “The New Atheism: No Heaven. No Hell. Just Science. Inside the Crusade Against Religion.”
Can anyone guess what the top two books at Amazon were Tuesday afternoon? If you guessed that the books had anything to do with religion, you would be correct.
The political firestorm over former White House official David Kuo’s Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction is as much about religion as it is about government bureaucracy and election-oriented politics. Is it a seminal work exposing the Bush administration as a bunch of frauds and political opportunists? No, journalists have already told that story, but it could prove to be a tipping point in prompting some evangelical leaders to reconsider their GOP allegiance.
You know how, when you have typed a word thousands and thousands of times, your fingers tend to fall into that same pattern when you are trying to type a word that is very similar to it?
As I mentioned earlier this week, I finally got a chance to read the Time cover story on the Prosperity Gospel. I’m sorry to be so late in analyzing the piece, but I heartily encourage you to read it.
Well, friends, I am back from my honeymoon. I have declared it the Best Honeymoon in the History of the World — but I don’t have much to compare it to. Tanned, rested and ready, I am. And married. And operating under a new name. So many changes.
My latest column for the ethics and diversity team at Poynter.org is online, if GetReligion readers want to check it out. You may, however, hear a bit of an echo since this piece called “Articles of Faith” grew out of a July post on this blog titled “Visions of another Magdalene bestseller.”
We had a discussion in the comments on a post last week that has stayed with me. I had written that generic refrains of bias at given newspapers bother me because they fail to take into account how individual reporters perform their jobs differently. I also said that some complaints fail to take into account other things that are important when writing a story, such as writing well.
Rick Warren, who pastors the Saddleback megachurch in California and has sold a gazillion copies of Purpose Driven books, is frequently named a top evangelical by a variety of publications. He advocates using business practices to drive church growth and his teachings are widely followed by fellow Southern Baptists and folks from all denominations who want to increase their church rolls. He encourages pastors to preach about day-to-day problems rather than the historic Christian themes of sin, redemption and atonement. Warren could not be more popular.
