Of course, Barack Obama was the top Religion Newsmaker of 2008.
Religion plus politics equals 2008
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In Jesus' name
Unlike all other Americans (give or take a few) I’m not a big fan of civil religion. I dislike the way it forces a syncretism and watering down of sacred beliefs in service to political goals. But there is a long-standing tradition of civil religion in America — invocations at political events, mentions of religious texts in inaugural speeches, veneration of Lincoln and other great politicians, interfaith events for political causes, etc. And so we will be witnessing a tremendous amount of civil religion in a few weeks when President-elect Barack Obama takes the oath of office to lead our country.
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GetReligion gets a pope gift
Back when I was a full-time religion-beat reporter, I was involved in covering several papal visits to the United States. There was a game that I used to take part in with several other mainstream reporters when we covered papal speeches, a game that I called “Spot the soundbite.”
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On the street where they live
Oh my, this is good religion reporting — that was my first thought when I got about halfway through the first in Laurie Goodstein’s New York Times series on overseas priests serving Catholic parishes in the United States.
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A fine line between hipster and Christian
I’m always amazed when I read a piece of journalism that takes what I call the “anthropological approach” to some weird religious group. It seems particularly odd when the group in question is Christians in America. Usually it’s evangelical Christians who get this special treatment.
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GetReligion gets a nice gift
I am happy, but not surprised, to find that GetReligion has readers in moderate Muslim circles, especially when it comes to issues of women’s rights and the actual practice of that faith.
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Pullin' in the rich--A tail of London's soul revival
Why, as Time did last week, profile an evangelical course in Christian basics that began almost 20 years ago in a London Anglican church?
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'A Christian and a real straightforward guy'
Sometimes the religious angles in a football story just jump out and grab the sports writer and force them to dig into the topic. For example, see here this excellent profile piece by ESPN.com’s Wayne Drehs on Kurt Warner. This is one of those athletes you simply cannot write about without mentioning his faith:
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The worship life of presidents
My Google News religion search included an interesting headline for a Los Angeles Times story: “Obama, family spend Christmas at vacation home, forgo church services.” But when I linked on the story, the actual headline was “Obama visits Hawaiian base.”
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