Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Who would have thought that a religion story out of Iraq, or the Middle East for that matter, would have something to do with subjects unrelated to headscarves and terrorism?
Strumming his guitar to a second-place finish in the silly Iowa straw poll this past weekend, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has alerted political reporters that evangelicals aren’t to be discounted as a voting bloc in the 2008 presidential election. Reporters covering the GOP side of the campaign were all set to discount evangelicals.
Everyone back in Washington is getting all excited about The Atlantic‘s article on President Bush’s former speechwriter Mike Gerson by a former colleague of Gerson’s, Matthew Scully. Scully’s main point is that Gerson sucked up to reporters, promoted himself over his colleagues and took credit for work that wasn’t solely his.
A reader of ours, UndergroundPewster, wrote us a note asking for our thoughts on this International Herald Tribune article on a new secular civics course being introduced in Spain.
Woe unto the reporter who attempts to write about Islamic charities and the potential ties various groups might have to terrorism in the Islamic world. In a neglected story that could have some legs in the near future, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported a week ago that Cambridge University Press wants to destroy all unsold copies of the book Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World (2006), after a libel claim was filed in England by a Saudi banker. The key word in this situation is “England.” It’s easier to sue people for libel in England than in the United States. Much easier.
John F. Burns of The New York Times has a compelling story to tell about Saddam Hussein’s burial place. The article includes religious elements that one would expect in a story dealing with life and death — the fact that Saddam’s buried head faces Mecca, personal prayer beads, the words “God is Great” in his handwriting — but little is said of Saddam’s religious faith or lack thereof, which is a significant hole in the story.
The New York Times’ blog The Caucus reports on the juicy conflict between the presidential campaigns of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Sen. Sam Brownback that is steeped in religious issues and language.
The kidnapping of 21 South Korean aid workers by the Taliban in Afghanistan is one of the most neglected international stories by the American media. There are several reasons for this. Primary among them is that Afghanistan plays second fiddle to the conflict in Iraq and that there just are not that many American reporters in Afghanistan. But this story still matters in America.
About a month ago I had lunch with tmatt, who gave me solid arguments for why the Harry Potter series were loaded with Christian themes and messages. I didn’t need much convincing since the arguments that the books were bringing children into the occult sounded a lot like the ones people used against C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and those are some of the best books ever written.
