Fundamentalism

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Logic versus faith?

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I realize I’ve been covering a great deal of abortion-related stories recently and some, including myself, might be somewhat beleaguered by the topic. But today is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the media are running many stories about abortion with a religion angle. The feature I want to bring to light was written by an unabashedly pro-choice man in today’s New York Times Magazine. Author Eyal Press is the son of an abortion doctor in Buffalo who was a colleague and friend of murdered abortion doctor Bernard Slepian.


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When is a leak a leak?

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I’ve spent a great deal of time researching media coverage of the Air Force Academy scandal that erupted last April. The press accounts, woefully one-sided, indicate that evangelical Christians are running roughshod over the rights of everyone else at the Academy.


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On the telephone as reporting tool

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A few weeks ago a mini-scandal broke out surrounding Ridgeway Elementary School in Wisconsin. It seemed that some official with the school play had secularized the words to the beautiful “Silent Night” (or as we Lutherans call it: “Stille Nacht“) to “Cold in the Night.” Various groups got enraged and sent out press releases and television networks ate it up and ran breathless segments about the war on Christmas.


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Brokeback stone table story hangs around

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If, while visiting the usual online newspapers and blogs, you clicked this gay-based Golden Globes story in Variety (“It’s red meat for the culture warriors.”) and then happened, by chance, to click on this sobering summary of movie and DVD trends in 2005 (“Plummeting 2005 box office sparks Hollywood crisis”), would one be justified with a click here and even over here to touch base with the American mainstream?


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Can journalists cover "normal" religion?

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Our friends over in the Christianity Today kingdom often wait, for a few weeks, before some of the pieces in their publications make their way from dead tree pulp into cyberspace. Thus, I have held off a bit posting a note about the recent Books & Culture essay by historian Philip Jenkins of Pennsylvania State University entitled “Religion and the Media: Do they get it?”


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Jerry Falwell, gay-rights activist?

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My Scripps Howard News Service column is out and it’s about the story behind an odd little news story involving a new gay-rights activist named Jerry Falwell. Does anyone have any theories as to why this story did not get more MSM attention (other than the fact that Falwell is as far from the limelight these days as Pat Robertson should be)? Just curious.


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Special "ooooh, you said the f-word!" edition

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Those, according to the always interesting religion writer Mark Tooley, are what the National Council of Churches’ Bob Edgar told Religion News Service he wants to redefine the term “moral values” to transcend. In a fun piece for The American Spectator, Tooley tries to broaden our understanding of the religious dimension of the filibuster debate. Worth a read:


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