Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Julie Sullivan of Religion News Service has a good article on the current position evangelical Christians hold on the war in Iraq. Their position is significant because it has been their support that gave Republicans undivided rule of Washington for six consecutive years. Evangelicals have also been some of Bush’s most consistent supporters.
You don’t have to read GetReligion long to realize that the writers here appreciate the work of Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times. We verge on being fans.
A few weeks ago we looked at some particularly good religious coverage of a polygamous Muslim family in the Bronx that suffered unimaginable loss in a housefire.
Like any journalist who has worked for an opinion journal, Andrew Sullivan is entitled to some favorite themes. One of his favorites for the past few years is the insidious threat of what he calls Christianism, or theoconservatism. In his 7,400-word New Republic takedown of Dinesh D’Souza’s latest book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, that theme is so prevalent that it calls to mind one of those outrageously large American flags favored by car dealerships (at least in the Deep South), popping defiantly in the wind.
My hometown newspaper, The Indianapolis Star, did just about everything wrong in a recent article on the local FBI office’s decision to bring in an author to talk to its anti-terrorism task force.
The Style section of The Washington Post is known for blurring the lines, from time to time, between traditional news features and the first-person, magazine-style writing that once was labeled “new journalism.” The emotional, first-person piece by Anthony Shadid titled “The Bookseller’s Story, Ending Much Too Soon” is labeled an “appreciation” and that is what it feels like.
Harvard religion professor Diana Eck’s New Religious America: How A “Christian Country” Has Now Become The World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation looks at how changing immigration laws have shaped the country. She tells stories about Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.
A long time ago, in a post about the Grammy Awards, I raised a basic question about God-talk in The Associated Press Stylebook. Here is what I wrote at that time, in reference to a Los Angeles Daily News story quoting diva Mary J. Blige expressing thanks to “Father, God, lord and savior Jesus Christ.”
My husband and I are expecting a baby this August. During the AFC Championship Game in January, we were having a conversation with a friend who decided that if the baby is a boy, we should force him to become a football kicker. Our friend’s reasoning was that even relatively bad professional kickers make $400,000 a year. I told him to stop any such discussion because I hate it when parents force their children to fulfill the parents’ desires. Besides, I added, I want him to become a pastor.
