Journalism

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Shake your groove thing ... in church?

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If you thought R&B artist Chris Brown’s career would be hurt by viciously beating his girlfriend Rihanna and threatening to kill her, you would be wrong. His song “Forever” is one of the top 10 iTune downloads after being featured in the YouTube video that’s taking the world by storm. Now, when I think of everlasting love and romance, I can’t say I think of Chris Brown. Or autotune. But one young couple did just that — sending their bridal party that is seemingly larger than their guest list joyfully down the aisle of a church dancing to that hit for the ages.


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Public vs. private faith

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I came across an interesting quote over at Beliefnet editor Steven Waldman’s blog. It comes from an essay written by the founder of the Interfaith Alliance, C. Welton Gaddy, and published on the Huffington Post. In it, Gaddy shares memories of newsman Walter Cronkite, a former chairman of the Interfaith Alliance. The Alliance exists to fight groups that it believes are part of the omnipresent religious right:


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Rowan through the looking-glass

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How many times do you really want to read the word “nuanced”? You better like it a lot if you intend to glance at recent press accounts of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan William’s recent statement in the wake of the Epspocpal Church’s decisions at General Convention. Denominational leaders removed canonical barriers to consecrating (more) gay bishops — and officially began the process of moving towards the creation of a gay-union liturgy. Some of the stories are a lot more detailed than others, some more balanced than others. And it’s safe to say that if anyone is happy with the Archbishop’s latest reflections, they aren’t quoted.


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Abortion and health care (again)

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Terry highlighted one of the more glaring holes in some of the stories covering the public health insurance debate. There have been some other problems with the media’s look at the abortion debate.


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Elbridge is in the house (somewhere)

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It’s a bit exasperating when a journalist does a really nice job on many angles of a particular story, and elides others. It seems almost unseemly to say –hey, wait a minute, buster! If religion is a big part of the story, how come its not here?


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Hey AP: You had it right!

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I think I am going to have to create a GetReligion list of “Big Ideas,” the concepts that drive what we do here. These two ideas would certainly be near the top, “Words have meaning” and “Ideas have consequences.”


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The oink and Holy Communion

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So my husband fell ill with the flu last week — likely swine flu. We’ve been taking the necessary precautions, which include not attending Divine Service today at our church. While much of the hoopla surrounding swine flu is overblown — we’ve learned it’s basically the same as normal flu, just scarier sounding — the pandemic is affecting the way congregations handle communion.


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