Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
China is giving Christian missionaries the boot in advance of the 2008 Olympic Games, according to an Associated Press article by Alexa Olesen. It’s a pretty straightforward story about more government oppression of religion in the world’s most populous nation.
Jacques Berlinerblau, an associate professor and program director at Georgetown University, has launched an On Faith column on the “religion-industrial complex.”
A reader of ours, Fred, left us a note about a pretty shabby story out of the Contra Costa Times, a Walnut Creek, Calif.-based daily newspaper, about declining membership in the Presbyterian church. As a side note, I encourage readers to keep sending us stories like these, the good and the bad. There is no way the four of us can canvas every single media outlet out there, and even some obvious stories in the major outlets slip past us from time to time, so please use that Contact link frequently.
You all remember that spat involving the Washington Nationals and religion in the fall of 2005 when the team’s chapel leader seemed to agree that Jewish people are headed to hell because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as their savior? The controversy ignited after comments from team Chaplain Jon Moeller were published in a rather excellent Washington Post feature on the Bible in baseball.
For some solid reading on what is bound to be a couple of slow days after the 4th of July celebration, head over to this fun Los Angeles Times piece on how God has been portrayed on the big screen. Reporter Paul Cullum covers the historical spectrum of the various times God has been played or portrayed by Hollywood.
Buried in the middle of Peter Baker’s generally excellent 3,000-word profile in Monday’s Washington Post on President Bush’s state of mind is a very odd sentence. The sentence does not directly relate to the main point of the story, but is a strange religion ghost in an article that discusses Bush’s Christian faith in a few places.
Sometimes I wonder if you could interpret everything that goes on of significance in Iraq through the lens of religion. In a solid news story Thursday, The Christian Science Monitor gives us the details on what Iraqi politicians are doing these days to appeal to their constituents:
I know what it is like to lose a cell phone, wallet or keys. There was that time when I left my wallet at the beach. Another time I dropped my cell phone out of my pocket at a baseball game. Then there was the incident of leaving my cell phone on the Metro train.
While Rudy Giuliani is heading toward a possible clash with Rome over his support for legal abortion, a second story about the Democratic Party’s moderating abortion stance is getting a decent level of press coverage.
