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As you would imagine, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the Rocky Mountain News the past week, especially once the final word came down on the shutdown of the newspaper where I worked during most of the 1980s. I still have lots of friends out there and, of course, that is also the paper that the Divine Ms. MZ Hemingway grew up reading, as well. Lots of memories.
One of the things I wish we saw more were casual inclusions of religion in stories about general life. It seems that there’s a lot of compartmentalizing of religion — as if stories are completely secular or they’re pigeonholed as religion news.
Dan Gilgoff, who runs the God & Country blog over at U.S. News & World Report, picked up on a little noticed but terribly interesting development in civil religion. Apparently President Obama’s public events are now being launched with prayers from local leaders.
Let’s look at a few more Ash Wednesday stories. Ann Rodgers of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette explores the meaning of Lenten discipline by focusing on a group of Presbyterians who are fasting. The story features the Rev. Elizabeth McCormick of First Presbyterian Church of Frostburg, Md., who is encouraging her congregation to fast. McCormick and her husband used to be missionaries in Sudan. She taught at a seminary in Khartoum and he was a financial adviser for the Presbyterian Church of Sudan:
Today is Ash Wednesday. In the Western Christian calendar, it is the first day of Lent. It occurs 40 days (not counting Sundays) before Easter and begins the most sacred part of the Christian year. It’s probably known mostly for the imposition of ashes on the forehead, a custom that aims to remind Christians of their complete sinfulness and mortality. They’re made in the sign of the cross to direct Christians to the necessity of Christ’s suffering and death for their salvation.
Yesterday we received a note in our story suggestion box from a pastor of the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod:
My first preview of at photographer Jona Frank’s book of portraits about Patrick Henry College occurred through Mother Jones, where it appeared alongside image galleries on phone sex operators, Aryan outfitters, and women in Afghanistan. (Mother Jones‘ photo galleries reflect a wide variety of topics, but I’m mentioning the ones it promoted alongside the photos from Frank’s second book, Right: Portraits from the Evangelical Ivy League.)
The only time I experienced culture shock was a few years ago upon return from a convention of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. One night at the bar, some of the people there got in a friendly discussion about our families. And, specifically, the size of our families. The men and women with 10 or more were quickly identified and feted. Then, I came back to DC and went to see the movie Anchorman. It’s a great movie but at the end, the mentally retarded character played by Steve Carrell is identified as a fundamentalist Christian who ends up having 12 kids. The audience roared with delight.
There’s a story coming out of Los Angeles about a college kid who alleges his professor treated him unfairly because of his political views.
