Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee today officially launched his bid to be the 2008 Republican nominee for president (or, as some would say, his candidacy to be someone’s vice president). Thanks to some diligent reading and good questions from Meet the Press host Tim Russert on Sunday, we have a pretty good idea of how the former Baptist preacher understands the role of his faith in his public duties.
So if it’s Monday, that must mean I write about something from The New York Times Sunday Magazine. And so I will. Mark Oppenheimer used the hook of a nondenominational university in Arkansas permitting dance for the first time as a way to explore some Christians’ view of dancing. The piece is ridiculously smooth and well-written and looks at the issue from a number of angles.
Back when I was in graduate school at Baylor University in the late 1970s, I had a classmate who was considering doing graduate work at the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. This student was not a fundamentalist at all and, in fact, I believe that he soon converted to the Episcopal Church. As often happens, we lost touch after graduate school.
Journalists use terms and labels daily to communicate meaning and historical significance to their readers. Now and then a term or label becomes so overused, misused or underused, that a reevaluation of that term or label is needed. While most newsroom discussions are best kept off the news pages due to their sheer banality, the discussion of how to describe groups is relevant. What better way to hash out the discussion than by sharing it with your readers?
Jimmy Carter apologized yesterday for a line in his recently released book, except that he didn’t, at least according to the Associated Press. The CNN clip presented here shows that while broadcasters played up Carter’s apology, most mainstream American media decided to play it down.
In his annual State of the Union address last night, President Bush did not let the absence of former chief speechwriter and Wheaton College graduate Michael Gerson keep him from talking about religion. Bush has been accused of allowing Gerson to slip in “code words” and phrases that allow him to secretly pander to America’s religious right, but this time Bush’s religiously oriented words caught the attention of a different audience.
In preparation for the 34th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, The New York Times Sunday Magazine had a lengthy feature on how post-abortion syndrome doesn’t exist. I’m sure you are as shocked as I am that the paper would come down quickly and easily on this side of the debate.
How delightful is it that both Hillary Clinton and Sam Brownback officially announced their plans to run for the presidency on the same sunny Saturday? Not that the announcements come as a surprise to anyone, but there is a slight irony that these two would share the spotlight.
If you have been looking for the religion section of The Dallas Morning News under the Features tab on the newspaper’s website, it isn’t there anymore. And if you live in Texas and you’ve been looking for the religion section in the dead-tree-pulp edition of the Saturday newspaper, you won’t find it anymore — at least not in its old section-front format.
