Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Every now and then, you get to see a reporter gently suggest that a major religious leader — take Pope Benedict XVI, example — has tried to pull a fast one. That may be what’s happening in this story earlier this week by New York Times reporter Ian Fisher about the pope’s complicated address on faith and reason, which included a highly significant illustration linked to Islam.
The stories in today’s papers on 9/11 memorial services provide a broad sense of the nation’s religiosity. Some are better than others in capturing this sense, but overall they are generally good at capturing a sense of the individual experiences Americans are feeling five years later. Of course, whether Americans were feeling religious Monday is another, separate matter worth examining.
As you would expect, reporter Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times includes a passing reference to the impact of 9/11 on the spiritual climate in America. I am looking around online to see if other mainstream newsrooms do the same.
So the first question that I need to ask today is if andrew.white@frme.org is actually Canon Andrew White, who one would expect to be writing to this weblog from an address that would probably end with the domain name of his organization — which would be frme.org.uk, if you consider the URL for its website. The contact address is office@frme.org.uk. More on this in a minute.
Much praise is due to Newsweek for running an article discussing atheism in its Sept. 11 edition. It is a unique way to approach religion’s influence on the country since the terrorist attacks of five years ago. My only complaint was that it mixed a bit too much opinion with the news. But author Jerry Adler snagged some real bits of news here, and his thoughtful 2,100-word article does the tricky issue adequate justice.
Chasing a comment from a reader that led to a blog down under, it certainly seems that there’s another bizarre angle in the already hot story of the forced conversions of those Fox News journalists, American Steve Centanni and New Zealander Olaf Wiig, to Islam.
Since I live in Baltimore, in a neighborhood where we are not allowed the option of taking The Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun is my main newspaper at breakfast.
If you have followed this blog from Day 1, then you are almost certainly familiar with the work of Dr. Paul Marshall of the Center for Religious Freedom at Freedom House. As I mentioned during my recent visit to England, Marshall is also one of my colleagues at the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life.
