Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
I had one of those days today that took no prisoners. Somebody must have drawn a line in the sand at some point, and I stepped over it without knowing what I was doing. Texans and John Wayne fans will get that reference.
By now, it should be pretty clear that the word “evangelical” is so vague that it is almost meaningless — unless a careful reporter places it in context and gives the reader some clue as to its application in a particular story.
Like many other apartment renters in the world, I spend a great deal of time coveting other people’s houses. Or homeownership in general. So this local religion story out of Detroit caught my eye. Reporter Doug Guthrie of The Detroit News wrote about a $3.65 million parsonage bought for a pastor, Ben Gibert, by his church.
While working at the Rocky Mountain News, I was able to visit a private facility on the western side of Colorado that specializes in counseling pastors and their spouses whose marriages have hit the rocks. I had a chance to profile the counselors and to talk with some of the people who were there for counseling. A few alumni of the program went on the record.
An expose of a Kansas City megachurch ran on the front page of The Kansas City Star‘s Sunday edition and a few readers passed it along then. I apologize for the delay in posting about it, but it’s taken me days to get through the whole package.
What in the world was the Apostle Paul thinking in 1 Corinthians 1:10-17 when he told Christians to eliminate all divisions and “be perfectly united in mind and thought”?
Like it or not, digital technology and blogging software have raised up armies of freelance media critics, many of whom are dedicated to taking potshots at the principalities and powers in the mainstream press.
Evangelicals are going at it again over the environment, and the media have hardly sparred us a detail in covering the blow-by-blow in this round. For starters, Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times laid out the fight Saturday as an attack by “leaders” such as James Dobson of Focus on the Family on those who have “strayed too far from their signature battles against abortion and gay rights.”
The Washington Post had a fascinating piece in Sunday’s paper about how the number of couples with children in America is dropping. Giving himself plenty of room for analysis from the smart people at the Brookings Institution and other places, reporter Blaine Harden tracks an under-reported story that is changing the face of America.
