Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Ruth Gledhill of the Times of London has done a fine job of condensing the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 4,500-word lecture on journalists into a news story of one-ninth that length. As journalists often do — and I make no claim to escaping this habit — Gledhill focused on the most pointed language in the archbishop’s text, in which he said this about web-based journalism:
When addressing members of the Evangelical Press Association in April, Anne Graham Lotz cited her father as a Christian who has remained focused on evangelism, even at age 86. Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times provides the details on what a toll Graham’s age has taken on his health, and the result is far more interesting than a snapshot of a plaster saint:
Our blog missed the fuss earlier this month when an adviser to Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said this in National Review magazine: “He’s been a pro-life Mormon faking it as a pro-choice friendly.” National Review and The Weekly Standard both recently published cover stories about Romney. Though National Review‘s standing ovation gained more attention, The Weekly Standard‘s profile, by publisher Terry Eastland, represents the better work.
In a story for The San Diego Union-Tribune, Kimberly Winston shows how much a talented religion reporter can do with something as simple as a locally sponsored conference about a dead man with a popular following. In this case, it helps that the dead man is Thomas Merton, the agnostic-turned-Catholic-monk who was pursuing an interest in Buddhism by the time he died in 1968. (If you’re a fan of Matthew Fox, you may believe that sentence should end with “by the time he was assassinated in 1968.”)
Don’t be deceived by the so-what-else-is-new headline on our friend Julia Duin’s report in The Washington Times. “African bishops reject aid,” as the Times’ headline puts it, has been a story since the latter months of 2003, when many African bishops announced their intentions to protest the Episcopal Church’s decision to consecrate Gene Robinson as an openly gay bishop.
Peter Slevin of The Washington Post has written such a moving profile of two Quakers’ long-term work in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing development that you may end up wishing this once notoriously violent community would stay together forever.
In 1997 I wrote a story for Christian Research Journal about Scientology’s expansion into Europe, where it was meeting resistance from various government officials — especially in Germany, where leaders have this well-founded thing about mass movements.
Here’s one of the more playful uses of “get religion” I’ve seen in a headline: “Getting religion about health,” which is Salon’s Q&A with Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee about his weight loss, his self-help book Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork and whether his health campaign could be related to any broader political ambitions.
Chuck Colson has become one of the elder statesmen of evangelical Protestantism since his conversion, his prison term for Watergate crimes and his long-term involvement with ministry among prisoners. Colson also has long shown a concern for Christian apologetics, whether through the books he’s written with various coauthors, his bimonthly column for Christianity Today, his BreakPoint radio commentaries or his other media appearances.
