Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Salon offers religion coverage only occasionally, but sometimes its quality compensates for the lack of quantity. Kimberley Sevcik’s 5,500-word report on Christian party animals is a fine example of what Salon does best: Treating evangelical believers as an exotic species, much like a shrieking peacock.
If you’re a member of the House of Commons and the comedian known for his roles in Mr. Bean and Blackadder opposes you — not once but twice — it’s probably a good time to rethink your proposal.
Rob Moll of Christianity Today Online’s Weblog has pointed out the imbalance of Newsweek‘s cover story on the Nativity, and GetReligion has previously identified Jon Meacham’s frequent practice of warning against the dangers of “certainty” and “literalism” in stories involving historic Christian dogma.
The New Yorker has published an engaging and sympathetic profile of Ole Anthony, leader of the Trinity Foundation, the Dallas-based scourge of TV evangelists. Anthony’s appearances on network television, and the changes he brought to The Door magazine, can leave the impression of a man obsessed with televangelists.
The three major broadcast TV networks stepped in a deep cowpie by turning away a witty ad from the United Church of Christ, and the UCC likely will gain more attention through news reports than it would have through the ad.
Pundits belittled Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop in the 1980s, when their book and film series Whatever Happened to the Human Race? predicted that euthanasia and infanticide were the logical companions of unrestricted abortion.
Somebody on The Independent‘s copy desk loves wordplay, but wit does not always equal news. Consider “Alexander the (not so) Great fails to conquer America’s homophobes,” a breathless report by John Hiscock (in Los Angeles) and James Burleigh that says Oliver Stone’s latest film has “brutally exposed the cultural and moral divide which slices America in two.” Ouch!
Our colleague Jeremy Lott will not post as often for the next few days as he fills in for one of our favorite bloggers, Charlotte Hays at Beliefnet. (Bloggers Charlotte Allen, Domenico Bettinelli Jr., Rod Dreher, Barbara Nicolosi, Kathy Shaidle and Mark Shea have filled in for her on other days.)
Salon has published a nearly 6,000-word essay today on the complicated relationship between Sylvia Plath and her longtime therapist, Ruth Tiffany Barnhouse. Writer Karen Maroda offers a sympathetic but critical portrait of Barnhouse, who died in 1999, and refers to an undercurrent of love between the therapist and her famous patient.
