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A $2.4 million study on the effect of intercessory prayer came out last week and received a bunch of coverage. Researchers studying 1,800 heart-bypass patients at three hospitals found that intercessory prayer by strangers has no effect on the health of the person being prayed for. They also found that people fared worse — in the short-term at least — if they knew they were being prayed for.
Every now and then you see a news feature story that makes you slap yourself on the forehead and say, “Shoot, that story is so obvious, but I have never seen that story before. Why didn’t I think of digging into that one?”
I have a friend, and former editor, who used to watch televangelists with a drinking buddy. They would come home from a night on the town and keep drinking while watching CBN or some other preacher network. It was all fun and games until one night they accidentally donated $50 to Pat Robertson. The good news is that they realized they needed to cut back on their drinking.
The current immigration debate in Washington, D.C., is chock full of religion issues that are floating just under the above-the-fold stories on the legislative processes and debates. The religious angle in immigration cuts across political boundaries and shoots directly at the center of the teaching of Jesus Christ.
Abdul Rahman, the Christian man who was in danger of being executed under Afghan’s Islamic laws, was released and flown to Italy. The cabinet of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi granted his asylum plea in an expedited process. And just in the nick of time, as the BBC reports:
I was thinking Tuesday that it would be interesting to do a long, drawn out series on death and dying. This of course has already been done many times by reporters far more gifted and in much more prominent publications than I could hope to attain, but it would be an education and an experience that I would appreciate. In college, a course was taught on the sociology of death and dying and I regret to this day not enrolling.
At first glance, it seemed like the story of ex-stripper Heather Veitch and her friends in the JC’s Girls Girls Girls ministry to women in the sex industry was destined for exclusive coverage on Geraldo at Large and other television shows that need punchy one-liners and lively images.
Vatican’s foreign minister Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo created a bit of a stir this past weekend when he said that the “time is ripe” for the Pope and China to establish diplomatic relations, according to this Associated Press account of Lajolo’s interview with the Hong Kong station I-Cable TV, which the Vatican made available to the press.
Roman Catholics who believe only males should serve the Sacrament or hold the lectionary open are backward and awful and almost without reason. Or so the Washington Post‘s Caryle Murphy and Michelle Boorstein would have you believe. Yes, members of the same mainstream American media that cautiously explain why some Muslims riot over political cartoons featuring Muhammad write a whole story without explaining the historic Christian view for an all-male priesthood and altar staff.
