Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Two Fox journalists who were kidnapped several weeks ago were released on Sunday. To some extent it’s the same old story with a happy ending: Muslim terrorists kidnap reporters. Media groups express outrage. Hostages released.
There is a lot that could be said about Time‘s August 20 article on how Christianity is changing China. Clocking in at about 1,800 words, it’s not an especially long piece considering the breadth of the subject. But it packs a punch in explaining the complex ways that Christianity is changing China.
Some unnamed Associated Press reporter in Oregon did a phenomenal job of working the phone to pull together a rather comprehensive survey of churches in the Beaver State that have or peal bells.
As I noted the other day, the leaders of the First Baptist Church of Palm Beach elected to try to stonewall reporter Jane Musgrave of the Palm Beach Post. Why? She was checking into rumors, reports and documents that suggested that the Rev. Steven Flockhart — the congregation’s new minister and a nationally known pulpit star — had some financial skeletons in his closet. That led to a lengthy report that, to my amazement, did a good job of quoting the young minister’s many admirers, as well as his critics.
After reading the article several times, I really do not know where to start when it comes to chasing the ghosts in the sprawling New York Times feature story on pedophilia in cyberspace. It was called "On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach," and I've been haunted by it for a week. But we can start with the obvious: It does appear that the Times has found a moral absolute that it can affirm when dealing with the various armies of the sexual revolution.
So pedophilia is bad -- period -- even though the piece briefly waves at several issues related to this behavior without explicitly passing judgment. Would the newspaper's editorial board, for example, back conservative calls for stricter enforcement of statutory rape laws? Even if that led to investigations of allegations against Planned Parenthood for protecting offenders?
But some of you will view that as a digression from the main issue -- pedophilia. And you would be right. But that leads to one of my basic questions about the Times piece: What precisely is pedophilia? How is the newspaper defining this term? What are the origins of this condition, as science has struggled to understand them?
To be more specific, where does the Times draw the line between "pedophilia," sexual activity by adults involving prepubescent children, and "ephebophilia," illegal sex with underaged boys and girls in their teens?
Let me offer the blunt illustration that explains the difference, as told to me once by an expert on the topic. A 40-year-old man who wants to have sex with a 16-year-old Britney Spears is sick and disturbed and being tempted to commit a crime. But this man is not sick, disturbed and a criminal in precisely the same way as a 40-year-old man who wants to have sex with a 6-year-old Britney Spears. The same would be true of a gay adult male.
Where did the Times draw this line in its research?
I really liked this Peggy Fletcher Stack piece in the Salt Lake Tribune. It’s not groundbreaking, but it nicely surveys a variety of churches in the Salt Lake region about an issue that’s somewhat universal.
I keep meaning to highlight two stories from earlier this week that dealt with female ordination. The first was a very well-written and interesting profile of the Rev. Marsha Foster Boyd by David Crumm in the Detroit Free Press. She was ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and will be taking over as the fourth president of Detroit’s Ecumenical Theological Seminary in October.
Like a gazillion other people, I’ve started reading The Christian Science Monitor each morning. That’s because former hostage Jill Carroll has been telling her story on its pages over the last week and a half.
I am sure that I have written this before at GetReligion and I am sure that, before long, I will write it again. However, there is some truth in the old Godbeat saying that for most American newsrooms, the formula for a page-one religion story is “three anecdotes, a poll and a quote from Martin Marty.”
