Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Happy birthday to me (sort of). This is the week that I get to celebrate the birthday of the weekly “On Religion” column that I write for the Scripps Howard News Service.
At the moment, the basic news story template for the release of the movie United 93 turns on this question: Is the public ready to buy tickets to see a sad movie about 9/11?
Well, the Judas Gospel story, the one that was supposed to shake the foundations of Christianity, seems to have passed away rather quickly. Christianity was similarly unfazed by the week’s reports that Jesus walked on an ice floe (not water), that he wasn’t crucified in the manner in which people think, and that Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier named Pantera, not Joseph. Let’s see if Christianity implodes under the allegation that Jesus didn’t die on the cross so much as pass out after being doped up.
If access equals power and power equals money (A=P=M), then Monday’s Washington Post article on the near demise of the Christian Coalition left an unanswered question that probes deep into the true influence of evangelicals on the Bush Administration. Or perhaps it’s the connection of access and influence?
Humility, for Christians, is a difficult thing to maintain. Those who talk about their humility are by definition not very humble. The attribute of humility is best when it is practiced, but unfortunately, Christians in the public spotlight are in a tough spot when it comes to demonstrating humbleness.
My newsroom was all abuzz this week with the revelation of the Gospel of Judas. The media have been going nonstop with the news that a Gnostic tract has been translated that says Judas was helping Jesus rather than betraying him.
Here we go again. Read this giant daily news story from the Washington Post and tell me if you learn anything whatsoever about why the Sunni and the Shiites are slaughtering each other.
Reader Charlie Lehardy sent in a story from his local paper, the Arizona Daily Star. The paper regularly runs prominent articles on alternative spirituality, he said. Erin White’s interesting profile of a shamanic energy healer begins with the story of a woman, Susan Luzader Prust, who bought a piece of land to run a resort for dogs but felt that parts of the property were “a little spooky and scary.”
Daylight-saving time in Indiana is a long debated issue that can destroy families, ruin relationships and divide political parties. As my good friend Daniel Bradley wrote, “frightened residents” will “take to the streets in horror, turning cars, setting fires and looking to the sky for the Four Horsemen.”
