Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Sorry for the delay on this one folks. I have, for some time now, been meaning to post the link to some interesting comments from the noted Vatican watcher John L. Allen Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter. In a way, it’s a meditation on the need for reporters — especially when covering Roman and American Catholicism — to dig past the easy layers of official sources and talk to real people on both sides of the church aisle.
In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law against sodomy. “Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court.
For years now, I have been saying that the two most controversial subjects in American religion are sex and salvation.
I like to believe my reading comprehension skills are adequate. But my confidence was dampened when I read The New York Times Magazine‘s advocacy journalism piece on gay parenting. The mash note ran 8,000 words, which was at least 2,000 too many.
Over at the always essential Christianity Today weblog, Ted Olsen kind of hit a wall and put up this headline for all of those who are paying attention to religion news this week:
In a previous post today, I referred to Time and Newsweek competing with each other for the best religion-centered cover story last week. Newsweek offered a package of articles (here’s the mainbar) about the Religious Right, while Time offered a more tightly focused debate between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins.
The editors of GetReligion have commented frequently on Jon Meacham’s work, in part because he has shown such a frequent and keen interest in religion coverage. To his credit, Meacham has kept that interest keen since becoming the editor of Newsweek. Indeed, last week offered a fine competition between Newsweek and Time for best religion-based cover story (about which more in a subsequent post).
When the Ted Haggard sex scandal broke, Lexington Herald-Leader religion reporter Frank Lockwood posed an interesting question:
Of the topics that are both universally experienced and wildly controversial, procreation has to rank near the top. Kudos to Eileen Finan at Newsweek for a remarkably balanced piece about a landmine-prone issue. (And thanks to reader Jon Swerens for letting us know about the article.) In an online-only piece, she looks at a movement of Protestant Christians opposed to birth control of any kind:
