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Unlike last year, when we saw a few interesting stories about Reformation Day celebrations, I didn’t find a single one this year. Which is a shame since I was looking for an excuse to link to this awesome Reformation rap.
For some reason, this collection of stories currently running on the Washington Post‘s religion page remind me of that old saw, I believe coined by Tom Lehrer, about how the New York Times would cover the end of the world: “World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”
Early in my reporting career, I spent quite a bit of time chasing televangelists around. That was pretty normal in Charlotte, N.C., and the Pearlygate era rolled on after I had moved on out to Denver.
Last week we looked at veteran Time religion writer David Van Biema‘s fun piece “Is It OK to Pray for Your 401(k)? A Theological Primer.” We’ve been calling for good religion coverage, when possible, of the current economic situation. Van Biema followed up that great piece with a really fun and interesting look at how different religions understand appropriate investment.
Based on personal email, I know there are GetReligion readers who want to know what I think of that small — but fascinating — USA Today story about one of the statistical mysteries in Christianity here in the American context. The question is, “What in the world is actually happening in Eastern Orthodoxy?”
A few days ago a reader sent in a really bad BBC article about French President Nicolas Sarkozy threatening to sue a company for selling a “voodoo doll” using his image. The piece was mostly a snarky take-down of Sarkozy and his other attempts at litigation and included this sort of laughable throwaway paragraph at the end:
As soon as I heard Sen. Barack Obama’s speech to Northern Virginians this week, I was sure we would have to do a post criticizing media coverage of it. The speech had some strong religious imagery, and in the past, religious references from politicians have been scrutinized and picked over. Here’s how the Washington Post covered the rhetoric:
Okay, everybody. Hang in there. We have just a couple weeks left for election coverage. Add an extra couple of days for mainstream media freak outs or rejoicing and then, hopefully, we’ll have a bit of a respite.
The Los Angeles Times ran two stories about the California marriage proposition that deal heavily with religion. The first is a puff piece — a pro-same-sex marriage press release, really — about the gay weddings a rabbi has performed:
