Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The pre-election story of the day, of course, is about the stunning allegations by a former gay male escort against the Rev. Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Haggard has stepped down from both posts, pending investigations.
The latest Newsweek reports on a theatrical breakthrough that had earlier escaped GetReligion’s attention: The Hell House phenomenon is now playing to packed-out houses at the edgy Les Freres Corbusier in Brooklyn.
Guess what? The Baltimore Sun had a nice news story today about the renovation of the 200-year-old Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is about to reopen after two years and $32 million worth of work.
Remember that 2004 pre-election coverage when political reporters were trying to parse theological statements made by Roman Catholic archbishops? Some reporters had trouble understanding how Catholic leaders had the audacity to discuss whether pro-choice Catholic candidates were violating church teachings. And everyone obsessed about the abortion issue at the expense of other issues Catholic leaders care about. Part of the problem might have been the use of political reporters to discuss a fundamentally theological issue.
My fellow Godbeat scribes, I come to you today to ask a question that has been bothering me for several weeks.
Remember that pre-Easter slate of stories attempting to debunk Christianity? There was the shocking lost “Gospel of Judas” story. The Jesus walked on an ice floe (not water) that forms once every few millennia story. The Jesus’ father was a Roman soldier named Pantera story and the Jesus didn’t die on the cross so much as pass out after being doped up story.
Attention all religion reporters, copy-desk chiefs or interested laypeople who are having trouble keeping up with all of the moves on the chessboard of Anglicanism in America.
We have had some lively discussion in the past week on my recent post raising questions about how mainstream reporters should handle, or try to avoid, questions about Mormon doctrines that strike many traditional Christians as wrong or, at the very least, worthy of debate. The spark for the discussions, of course, is a possible Mitt Romney bid for the White House. Click here for a recent Salt Lake Tribune piece linked to this.
