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If you are interested in God and also in blogs that are about religion and God, then you are probably familiar with The God Blog, which is operated by the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. And if you are familiar with The God Blog, that means you are familiar with the work of the young religion-beat specialist Brad A. Greenberg.
Every time I read a story from the Washington Post Foreign Service, it makes me sad that newspapers can’t afford to have correspondents throughout the globe. The latest exceptional piece was filed by Craig Whitlock and headlined “In German Birthplace of Reformation, a Revival of Interest.” Here’s how it begins:
Reader’s Digest announced in November 2008 that it will work with evangelical pastor Rick Warren to produce a new magazine and a “Facebook for Christians” platform. In a report heavy with ideology, Stephanie Clifford of The New York Times treats the Warren deal, and a staff meeting at the corporate headquarters, as evidence that the company is turning more conservative:
The world-weary folks at the Washington Post Style section have made it official — the Sen. John Ensign affair is just no fun at all.
Why right now? Why are these isolated extremists pulling their triggers? What are the factors that are pushing the “kill” button at this moment in time?
This week’s edition of Time features a 2,400-word essay by Robert Wright, and it’s one of the most amusing exercises in eisegesis I’ve read in a very long time. The cover of Time promotes the essay, an excerpt from Wright’s new book The Evolution of God, as cracking a code embedded in the Scriptures of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The article’s subtitle suggests that, if the monotheistic Scriptures are read correctly (i.e., with Wright’s code in mind), this may even create the possibility of reconciliation and religious harmony.
Here is another one of those strange little — repeat “little” — church-state stories that a few readers continue to ask about, via personal emails.
Last month I attended a meeting of Episcopal clergy. Most of us were middle-aged and elderly, longtime denizens of parish ministry. We spent some time talking about the Scriptures for that Sunday. Then I asked them what they thought of the Rev. Kevin G. Thew Forrester (got to be Episcopalian, with that name), a controversial bishop candidate in the Diocese of Northern Michigan.
When popular films portray Christians well — not as plaster saints or as hypocrites with bulging eyes — they can achieve a near-transcendence. I think of the late great Horton Foote’s screenplays for Tender Mercies or The Trip to Bountiful, or the the humanity that director Paul Thomas Anderson gave to a Christian police officer in Magnolia.
