Godbeat

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Vermont bacon wars: How much religious info does a news report need?

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One of the most interesting questions my students ask me all the time can be stated like this: In an age of short stories and even shorter attention spans, how do I know how much information is enough when I'm dealing with a complicated topic? 

You can see the relevance to the religion beat, right? How do you know how much the average reader actually knows about a given world religion (think Islam) or even, in an American context, details about different forms of Judaism or Christianity? How do you know when you need to stop and spend a few precious words explaining something that, to some readers, may be perfectly obvious, but not perfectly obvious to others?

Well, I saw an interesting little story the other day from Burlington, Vt., that perfectly illustrated this situation and I stashed it away for later discussion. Reading it a second time I noticed that, well, it was written by a former student of mine, someone with whom I have had this precise discussion.

So, let me clearly state that connection and note that the following is not a slam job. I honestly do not know whether this little story has to have an addition fact paragraph or two. I also don't know if the reporter (hello there, April) write additional material that was removed by an editor. Things happen. This is one reason GetReligionistas rarely mention reporters by name.

So what's the subject here? Well, it's Islam and bacon.


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Who is in charge of judging Mark Driscoll, other than the New York Times?

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As the story of Mars Hill Church and the Rev. Mark Driscoll continues to unfold, I want to flash back to the very important New York Times story that yanked this drama onto the national front burner (other than for evangelical insiders).

This story was quite good, with few examples of usual jarring advocacy language pointing readers toward the progressive social doctrines advocated by the Times. In particular, note that this story often featured the views of conservative Christians who are now critical of Driscoll's leadership style and some of the actions that may or may not have grown out of it. Even though this story travels into moral and cultural issues, there are very few traces of "Kellerism" in it.

However, this report does have one major problem, from my point of view. It is clear that Driscoll is facing the judgment of evangelical Protestant leaders from coast to coast. However, the story never really states the degree to which Mars Hill Church is, itself, an independent body that has few ties binding it to any denomination or tradition.

In other words, if Mars Hill is a kind of mini-denomination of its own, who has the legal, as well as the doctrinal, right to investigate and then pass judgment on its founder?


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Devil in the details: Oklahoma religion writer shows how to report a controversy

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Devil's advocate? Carla Hinton of The Oklahoman didn't go quite that far in her story about an archbishop versus a Satanist group. But she did talk to both sides and showed how a principled, professional religion writer works.

At issue was a lawsuit by Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City to halt a planned "black mass" in a public hall. His complaint was that the mass would include a desecration of the Host, or consecrated Eucharistic bread -- and argued that the bread must have been stolen.

In a couple of crisp paragraphs, Hinton and contributing writer William Crumm lay out the issues:

Coakley is asking the court to require the Oklahoma County sheriff to obtain the Eucharistic host from the Satanist group and deliver it to him as the local leader of the Catholic Church. The lawsuit states that in order for an unauthorized individual to have a consecrated host, he or she would have had to obtain it through illicit means such as “theft, fraud, wrongful taking or other form of misappropriation, either by Defendants or by someone else.”

In the lawsuit, Coakley said the consecrated host — typically a small unleavened wafer of bread — is considered sacred by Catholic Christians. It is an integral part of the Eucharist, also called Holy Communion.


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Now with extra-added unblocking power: BBC on Pope's support for Romero sainthood

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The BBC reported this week on comments that the Pope made concerning Oscar Romero's candidacy for sainthood, claiming Francis has "unblocked" the cause of the Latin American archbishop:

Pope Francis has lifted a ban on the beatification of murdered Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero.

For years, the Roman Catholic Church blocked the process because of concerns that he had Marxist ideas.

An outspoken critic of the military regime during El Salvador's bloody civil war, Archbishop Romero was shot dead while celebrating Mass in 1980.

Beatification, or declaring a person "blessed", is the necessary prelude to full sainthood.

The bishop was one of the main proponents of Liberation Theology - an interpretation of Christian faith through the perspective of the poor.

There are a number of things wrong with this story from the get-go.


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In #Ferguson, a tale of two kinds of churches -- one white, one black

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The news in Ferguson, Mo., goes on and on and on.

I've highlighted coverage of the religion angle here and here, and I'll do so again in this post.

So far, I've found Twitter the best means to keep up with all the faith stories (by the way, follow all the GetReligionistas). 

Godbeat pro Lilly A. Fowler of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch remains on the scene, and Eric Marrapodi of CNN "Belief Blog" fame is there, too.

Former Post-Dispatch religion writer Tim Townsend tweeted a link to a Washington Post story that I found particularly compelling.

The Post story contrasts the stark differences Sunday at a white church sympathetic to the white police officer who shot Michael Brown and a black church mourning the young black man's death.


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Pope Francis, tricky abortion language and Associated Press style

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There are few issues that your GetReligionistas deal with on a regular basis that are more emotional than the language used in news coverage about abortion. It's the whole pro-life equals anti-abortion and pro-choice equals pro-abortion (or pro-abortion rights) debate.

Some people claim that all of this is strictly a matter of political speech and they see no religious content in the debate at all.

Right. Forget centuries of tradition, the history of American debates on abortion and, well, that whole Psalm 139 thing.

For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mothers womb. … Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.

So people paid attention when Pope Francis visited that highly symbolic cemetery in South Korea the other day. 


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Pod people: Vigils, protests and church activism in wake of #Ferguson

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Pod people: Vigils, protests and church activism in wake of #Ferguson

As the nation's spotlight stays focused on Ferguson, Mo., your friendly GetReligionistas remain interested in religion story angles and, yes, even ghosts.

In this week's episode of "Crossroads," the GetReligion podcast, host Todd Wilken and I discuss media coverage of the chaos and protests in that St. Louis suburb since a police officer fatally shot an unarmed black teenager.

A few religion angles have crossed our radar, such as this Huffington Post report.

But beyond the coverage I highlighted Thursday, few strong #Ferguson faith angles seem to have emerged. Not that Godbeat pros such as Sarah Pulliam Bailey — a former GetReligion contributor who now serves as a national correspondent for Religion News Service — haven't tried.

So far, the Ferguson religion coverage has been about "vigils and protests and church activism," Sarah said in response to a question from me. She added: "I feel like the media have been pulled in so many different directions this week: Robin Williams, Ebola, Iraq, Israel, Ferguson, Pope Francis in South Korea. I think it's been hard to drill down and get good reporting on all of the stories."


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Amen to this question: 'What the hell is happening in Ferguson, Mo.?'

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In Ferguson, Mo. — dubbed "Baghdad, USA" by The Huffington Post and labeled a "A CITY ON EDGE" in a banner headline by today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch — Wednesday's arrests of two prominent journalists for the apparent crime of doing their jobs caused a Twitterstorm.

The social media outrage produced some, um, religious overtones.

"What the hell is happening in Ferguson, Mo.?" asked The Poynter Institute's Kelly McBride.

Those of us who write for GetReligion are religion journalists. But first of all, we are journalists. As such, I can't help but say "Amen!" to the question by McBride, a leading expert on media ethics.

Seeing photos like the Associated Press image tweeted by the Chicago Sun-Times, it's difficult to imagine that the scene unfolding in suburban St. Louis is actually happening right here in the United States of America.


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The 'lite' is on for Cardinal Wuerl at the WaPo

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The Washington Post's Sunday magazine features a light -- and I mean l-i-t-e light -- interview with Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington.

The interview is the latest installment of the magazine's "Just Asking" feature, in which reporter Joe Heim asks a few short questions, often humorous, to someone prominent in local politics or culture, with the aim of showing his or her human side. With Wuerl as the subject, that means,

"A moral question: Should the Washington Redskins change their name?"

And the hard-hitting follow-up: 

"But is saying that [the Redskins should make the "right call"] sort of the same as saying they should change their name?"

A few thoughts on the piece:

1. Given that the Washington Post has severely cut its Godbeat reporting since dumping "On Faith," it's good to see any kind of coverage of religion in the paper that is not occasioned by a political issue or controversy (Redskins aside).


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