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We had an interesting discussion the other day in the comments pages after my post about coverage of the decision by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to approve the ordination of noncelibate gays, lesbians and bisexuals (and potentially cohabitating straights, as well). The discussion focused on the old, old, old Godbeat term “mainline Protestantism.”
Time has a very interesting take on what the death of Osama bin Laden means for al Qaeda in the May 20 issue. Written by Peter Bergen, he compares 9/11 to Pearl Harbor saying both events demonstrated “a stunning tactical victory that set in motion events that would end in the defeat of” the respective aggressors. We’re told that bin Laden was full of hubris and how some of his shrewder lieutenants didn’t support the particulars of his campaign to destroy the United States.
One would think, after decades of liberal Protestant battles about sexual morality, that each and every American journalist who comes near one of these stories would have the basic facts down pat.
What we have here is an interesting New York Times feature story about a dead or dying community, one of those rust-belt towns in which — this is a fact — the economic realities of this age are giving people less and less to live for.
I grew up in the Central Valley of California, a few miles outside of a town of a thousand people. We lived across the street from the local church, though, and many of my childhood memories involve the church’s bell tower. For one thing, it rang shortly before services began each Sunday morning. That’s when the locals would know to head on over — on foot. And whenever a parishioner died, we’d toll the bell once for each year of their life. When we’d be out playing in the fields, we’d stop and count each clang.
If you know anything about the history of high-society journalism inside the Beltway, then you understand that the Washington Post had to publish some kind of Sally Quinn piece about that wedding over on the other side of the Atlantic. I do not know if the resulting piece is journalism or not, but it does offer some insights and information in her first-person, my-feelings-are-the-story style that has helped define much of the foggy content in the “On Faith” project.
As the daughter of a public employee union member, I was inclined to look at this Associated Press story about religion and unions. Its headline in the USA Today version was “Churches wrestle with God’s stand on union rights.” I was hoping the story would discuss, well, churches wrestling with the issue — or with each other — but it was actually just a long, but shallow, look mostly at what a few mainline clergy have to say about collective bargaining battles:
When I attended the National Prayer Breakfast back in February, I was struck by the clear confession of faith President Barack Obama gave. There were many speakers and every single one of them was talking about their faith. But while many speakers were opaque, Obama said things I wouldn’t be surprised to hear in my own church on Sunday morning. I left the country a few hours later so I never saw how the media covered that speech.
One of the reasons so many big stories in our mainstream press are “haunted” by religion ghosts is that many reporters are confused about what is and what is not “religious.”
