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Once upon a time, I thought I wanted to become an economics professor. This delusion lasted from early high school until I took enough postgraduate classes to be convinced otherwise. I loved my field of study and I had fantastic professors. One way in which they were helpful was to counsel me to keep my private views on everything from monetary theory to the Coase Conjecture hidden.
The last time we tuned in the Southern Methodist University soap opera involving the George W. Bush presidential library, we were seeing lots of people claim that, for the faculty, this was an issue of academic freedom and, for a vocal chorus of Methodist clergy, it was a fight over W’s sins against “Methodist values” in foreign policy and a hot cultural issue or two.
An interesting story has been brewing out of the John Edwards campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. He hired a couple of bloggers to run outreach to the liberal blogosphere. And their credentials were so good that it kind of backfired on him.
Disgraced pastor Ted Haggard is in the news again. A few days ago his email to members of New Life Church was released to the media. Eric Gorski wrote up the story for The Denver Post:
If you can get past this week’s lurid Newsweek cover art, there is actually some decent content in there. (And the photos that were included in the cover piece defeat the entire purpose of the article.) But on to more important and religion-related items.
In predictable fashion, the Indianapolis Colts sloppily walked all over the Chicago Bears last night and Colts head coach Tony Dungy gave God the credit for the win. The big question for us here at GetReligion is not whether Rex Grossman should be allowed to remain in the National Football League, but how and when the media should highlight Dungy’s comments.
So imagine that a prominent advocate of traditional marriage was exposed for having sex with someone he was not married to. Let’s say he had an affair with the wife of one of his employees. Let’s say he was married at the time but was divorcing his wife.
Back in November when the Ted Haggard scandal broke, Terry said he hoped reporters would keep on the story. A service on Sunday provided a good reason to check back in on New Life megachurch in Colorado Springs. That’s because Mike Jones, the former prostitute whose allegations about having sex and taking drugs with Haggard broke wide on the eve of the 2006 elections, went there on Sunday.
Relax. I have little or no interest in the shoddy stories about Barack Obama and his alleged years studying in a madrassa in Pakistan.
