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Bigger than Jesus, indeed
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Heralding the King ... of Pop
Associated Press music writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody praised the “poignant and serene” memorial service for Michael Jackson:
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Worshiping the King of Pop
I came so close to being able to avoid the Michael Jackson worship service held at the Staples Center. But I caught a few minutes while feeding the world’s hungriest baby. (Seriously, I think I gave birth to Otesanek.) I caught the “We Are The World” group sing and a couple of teary eulogies.
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A leading reformist clerical group?
Independence Day weekend might not be the best time for a major story to get its due. Case in point is this fascinating New York Times story about Iranian clerics defying Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the rigged presidential election there.
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How not to push a story
Associated Press reporter Allen Breed is back with another religion-fueled story on Gov. Mark Sanford, leading candidate for South Carolina’s worst husband. You sort of know the story’s not going to be so hot when it begins as follows:
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The Christian view of love is . . . cold?
When I was criticizing that awful Washington Post piece about how morally confounding Mark Sanford’s love life is, it just seemed odd to me that no media outlet has really explained the Christian view of love. For being a country that is majority Christian, it’s shocking how little we read about some of the basic tenets of the theology.
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What is love?
One of the things my pastor told my husband and me in premarital counseling is that we should think of love as a verb, not a noun. The Christian couple, he said, should know that love is what you do, not what you feel. On a somewhat related note, my father told me that he had counseled couples for marriage who wanted their vows to read “as long as we both shall love” instead of “as long as we both shall live.” Dad pointed out that they’d need something to keep them going after their first week of marriage.
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Jenny Sanford, Catholic heroine?
As interesting as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s bizarre and tormented press conference was — the one where he announced he had something going on with an Argentinian woman, it was his wife’s statement about the matter that I found the most intriguing. In her statement, she overtly references her Christian faith, even quoting scripture.
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Theodicy and forgiveness in Iowa
Last week, an Iowa high school football coach was shot dead in the school’s weight room. Police charged a 24-year-old former player. The headline made Drudge but I quickly forgot the story and didn’t see much follow-up. Many people talk about the sports page as if it’s got the best writing in the whole newspaper. And they’re probably thinking of reporters like Josh Peter, an enterprise reporter with, of all outlets, Yahoo! Sports. He looked at the shooting and came up with a story about theodicy, forgiveness and the strength of tight-knit communities. Here’s how he began:
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