Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Say what you want about The New York Times — actually, don’t say what you want — the paper does have some great resources at its disposal. One of my favorite features is their city journal. That’s where stringers and foreign correspondents file slice-of-life reports from exotic locales.
The vast majority of people in America are Christian. So it shouldn’t really surprise newsrooms that Christians have a wide variety of vocations.
With the recent addition of endowed chairs in Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University and Utah State College, Mormon studies are becoming more popular. Michael Paulson of the Boston Globe wrote about the trend, noting that Harvard is offering a course on “Mormonism and the American Experience” this semester.
Last week, the president of The College of William & Mary resigned abruptly after he found out his contract wasn’t going to be renewed later this year. President Gene Nichol, a former administrator at my alma mater, had been in the news for a couple of decisions he made. One was removing a cross from the campus’ historic Wren Chapel. Another was permitting a traveling show of sex workers to visit the campus. William & Mary is a public university of the Commonwealth of Virginia, it should be noted.
Much of the mainstream media coverage of the controversies in the Anglican Communion have focused on The Episcopal Church. Canada’s Globe and Mail looked at how things are playing out in another part of North America. Robert Matas wrote a story on Friday about a parish in Vancouver deciding to align with Anglicans in South America. He took the novel and welcome angle of determining why the parish had made its decision. For his lede, he told readers about the Bible study that parishioners at St. John’s Shaughnessy Church had taken part in prior to voting to request oversight from Archbishop Gregory Venables of the Anglican Province of Southern Cone:
A few readers sent along an excellent story by Neela Banerjee in the New York Times. She looked at custody disputes across the country where religion comes into play. The story is fantastic. Wonderfully balanced, very informative and full of excellent reporting:
Since I love analyzing media coverage of the liturgical calendar, there is no way I could let this story from The Telegraph go without comment. Apparently, some Dutch Catholics are trying to encourage folks to embrace the penitential season of Lent. That’s the good news:
On Friday, we looked at some of the media coverage of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’ suggestion that some aspects of sharia should be formally introduced in England. On Monday, we looked at some of the responses Williams’ speech has engendered.
A couple of weeks ago, I highlighted K. Connie Kang’s story in the Los Angeles Times about an interfaith worship service hosted by the Los Angeles Episcopal Diocese. She wrote a detailed report that included the observation that Hindus had been invited to take communion during the service.
