Mollie Hemingway

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Ride on, ride on in majesty

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I grew up in California where palm trees are abundant. It was pretty easy for members of my congregation to find fronds for Palm Sunday, when Lutherans and other Christians gather outside the church and process into the sanctuary reenacting Jesus Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. But what if you live in less tropical climates where palm trees aren’t local? Some Christians, worried about the environmental impact of securing palm fronds, have found an “eco-friendly” solution. And more than a few reporters chose that angle for their annual Palm Sunday stories. Here’s Steven Vegh with the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:


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A dessert topping and a floor wax no more

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Of all the stories written about the defrocking of Ann Holmes Redding, an Episcopal priest who converted to Islam, the most widely disseminated seemed to be this one from CNN. That’s unfortunate, since it was remarkably shallow and one-sided. No one from The Episcopal Church, much less the diocese that disciplined her, is quoted:


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Knowing your beat

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Lisa Miller is the religion editor at Newsweek. You may remember her from that very unjournalistic cover story she wrote purporting to advance a religious case for same-sex marriage.


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Newt swims the Tiber

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So former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was received into the Roman Catholic Church this past weekend. He had been Baptist. For most people, conversion isn’t exactly a political event. But when you’re a prominent Republican whose name is being mentioned as a possible future candidate for President, well, everything is political.


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The right to criticize beliefs

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Last week, the UN Human Rights Council approved a resolution that calls on nation states to limit criticism of religions in general and Islam in particular. Proposed by Pakistan on behalf of other Islamic countries, the resolution passed with the votes of 23 countries on the 47-member council. According to Freedom House, many of the sponsors and supporters of the measure have some of the poorest records of respecting freedom of speech and religion in the world.


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Faith and flooding in Fargo

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Journalistically speaking, this might not be the best story you read today. It’s a bit choppy and seems to weld two different stories together. But they’re both important stories and one is about how churches are responding to the flooding in Fargo.


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Got news? State Department edition

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I thought I’d wait to write this post until I saw mainstream media coverage of one particular aspect of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. And then, thousands of stories about the visit to Mexico later, I realized that the press wasn’t going to be covering it.


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Cartoon double standards?

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I’m wondering if syndicated cartoonist Pat Oliphant shouldn’t resist the urge to use his acid brush to depict religious angles. Last time we discussed his work, he was demonstrating his ignorance and hatred of Pentecostalism on the pixelated pages of the Washington Post.


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When does life really begin?

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The Roman Catholic bishop of South Bend, Indiana will not be attending the graduation ceremonies at the University of Notre Dame because President Barack Obama will be honored at that time. Obama’s policies on embryonic stem-cell research and abortion conflict with Catholic teaching about the sanctity of human life.


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