The other day, in a discussion of events in Egypt, I noted — once again — that there is no one Islam, no monolithic version of the same faith. The same thing is true of Islamic law, even among people who believe that they want to live in a society that is ruled in accordance with sharia. Click here to go back and catch up on that.
Should some marriages be scare-quoted?
Many moons ago, when I was asking questions about why Religion News Service put “religious liberty” in quotes, defenders of the practice said it was just a way of signaling that while some people believe that a given issue deals with religious liberty, others do not. It’s a way to indicate that one is not taking sides on the matter. Astute readers noticed that if this were the policy, than we should see quotes around abortion “rights” and same-sex “marriage.”
Does The New York Times hate Timothy Dolan?
”The question is, should this indictment have ever been brought? Which office do I go to to get my reputation back? Who will reimburse my company for the economic jail it has been in for two and a half years?”
What NOT to teach a metro reporting intern
Need a new role model after #MileyCyrus? Try Sister Vivian, a rockin’ 100yo nun who’s pushing for women priests http://t.co/AagH92HIWu
A murdered child, a guilty teen, 'Dexter' and a very real hell
One of the big ideas of this website, oft repeated in a variety of wordings, is that if journalists want to understand real events in the real lives of real people in the real world, then — more often than not — they are going have to wrestle with very real religious issues. At some point, journalists have to take religion seriously and let people talk about the religious beliefs that help shape their actions in life.
Got news? Mother Jones on ghosts in FBI's Hasan probe
Your GetReligionistas normally do not spend much time looking at ideological media outlets, such as National Review or Mother Jones.
Where is the BBC's coverage of what's happening in Egypt?
Hurrah: Learning more about Antoinette Tuff's religion
The other day I was reading an obituary of Tom Christian, descendent of the Bounty mutineer. It was in the New York Times and written by my very favorite obituary writer, Margalit Fox.
Religion and the 1963 March on Washington
August 28 is the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. There’s a huge rally down at the Lincoln Memorial today and media coverage has been ramping up in preparation. One of the complaints we’ve gotten about that coverage is that it has oddly avoided mention of the religious component of the original march and of continued civil rights efforts. And that has been missing from some coverage.
