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Reporter Molly Ball of the Las Vegas Review Journal scooped the national press on a major political story Sunday. While covering the presidential campaign of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, Ball reported that a pastor endorsed Obama from the pulpit (Hat tip to Spiritual Politics):
If you are interested in Huckabee’s efforts to woo evangelicals, you could do worse than read the latest from the Washington Post‘s Perry Bacon and Juliet Eilperin. In a straightforward account, they explain how Huckabee isn’t just an economic populist, but a religious one, too:
Washington Times reporter Julia Duin has written dozens of pieces on the big religion story happening in Virginia — the realignment of 11 Episcopal congregations from the Episcopal Church into the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA), a missionary branch of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. We’ve read, if not highlighted, her various stories about the incremental updates in the lawsuits the Episcopal Church filed against the departing flocks. Her blog also makes for lively reading, helped along by her writeup of her failed dramatic stakeout of Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola.
That sound you heard the other day in England was nervous coughing. It seems that the leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church, Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori, is determined not to let gays, lesbians and bisexuals in England sit on the sidelines while traditionalists in the rest of the world take shots at her troubled flock.
A couple of days ago, The Des Moines Register ran a very long piece — just under 2,500-words — on a pastor and his incredible ability to overcome challenges and seek and receive forgiveness for his sins. The sins in this case would be gambling. In particular, the pastor’s sin was gambling (and losing big) with church money. Needless to say, this pastor was fired from his job.
In a day and age in which newspapers fail so miserably at answering the question “What does Christmas mean?” (apart from generic platitudes of goodwill and commercialism), I have to commend Tim Townsend and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for a story that gives a completely theological response.
Loyal GetReligion readers will recall that, back in September, I sang the praises of a wonderful New York Times feature story by reporter Warren St. John that began like this:
The Associated Press sent out a fairly solid story of religious and social significance Thursday, although one would not think so at first glance. A local pastor in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, gave members of his congregation $50 and told them to go see how they could multiple the money for charity. The story has been carried on several newspaper websites, but as best I can tell, the AP is the only news outlet to publish something on this.
It’s kind of hard to kick a major movie when it’s down, but I still find the whole story of The Golden Compass quite fascinating.
