As I type this, there are 49,980 comments attached to the 4,157 posts spread out over the five-plus years of life here at GetReligion.
Who wants to be No. 50,000?
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Spiritual disciplines build community
Because politics is religion to many reporters, far too many religion stories are seen through that prism. If you want coverage and you’re not embroiled in some hot-button issue or campaigning for some government action one way or another, you’re probably not going to get any.
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Shameless plug for a student
Here’s a hard-news story that I have been interested in, ever since some of the details of President Barack Obama’s stimulus and tax plan began to surface. Thus, I have been watching for mainstream coverage of the topic.
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Death, God and faith in the news
Death and dying are intricately tied to the subjects of God, religion and faith. The Los Angeles Times made this clear earlier this week in its detailed look at why some statistics show that cancer patients deemed terminally ill requested intensive, but useless medical treatment, such as breathing machines, at a much higher rate if their faith was a significant factor in the their medical decision.
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Explaining those denominational votes
I wish the mainstream media would cover more denominational news. Or, should I say, more denominational but non-Episcopalian news. I also wish we’d see more balanced coverage of disagreements related to homosexuality.
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Flash! Vatican opposes birth control
On the same day that Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput was critiquing media coverage of the church, we got a real time example of some less-than-stellar religion reporting. Pope Benedict XVI landed in Africa this week and received breathless coverage because, as Amy Welborn put it over at Beliefnet, “the Pope has not booked a seat on the condom train.”
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Archbishop Chaput analyzes the media
Yesterday Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput addressed a gathering of top religion journalists at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington, D.C. His speech was billed as a discussion on the political obligations of Catholics but he also spent a great deal of time discussing the strengths and weaknesses of media coverage. I had the privilege of attending, while also getting to put the names of reporters we discuss here with their faces.
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Time for the never-ssenes?
For those of you who haven’t had the experience of attending a mainline seminary or studying the Bible in an academic institution, the Essenes are almost as much a matter of contemporary Biblical orthodoxy as the historical-critical method.
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To whom did he pray?
A reader noted a brief bit in an Associated Press story about the Alabama man who killed 10 people and himself in a violent rampage last week.
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