We’ve looked at a bit of the coverage of the Swiss ban on the construction of minarets — the spires on mosques that are sometimes used for the call to prayer. Earlier this month, I noted a single story that looked at how religious freedom is handled in some Muslim countries. Many stories didn’t bother to mention the issue even while they covered the outrage toward the Swiss ban from various leaders in these Muslim countries. Reader Mike Hickerson asked:
Birds of a doctrinal feather
The church-state junkie in me really does not know where to begin when it comes to evaluating the mainstream media coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case pitting the University of California’s Hastings College of Law in San Francisco against the campus chapter of the Christian Legal Society.
Minarets and steeples
Steve already looked at some of the media coverage of the story about Switzerland banning the construction of minarets on mosques. For those of us accustomed to First Amendment-protected religious freedom, the vote probably comes as a shock and disappointment. Nairobi reader William Black wrote about a couple of the problems he saw in the coverage. He was disappointed with the vote saying that, as a Christian, he sees no reason to fear Muslim voices in the marketplace of ideas or Muslim presence in his neighborhood. And he worried that this vote would set a dangerous precedent for limiting the freedom of other religious groups in Europe.
Black Fridays and purple Sundays
Every year we read about the War on Christmas. The mainstream media love to cover stories about those Scrooges who ban the use of any specific greetings related to Christmas and the old curmudgeons who complain about the same.
This reporter gives thanks that ....
It’s Thanksgiving, of course. So I would like to give thanks that I was not in Laurie Goodstein’s shoes the other day when she heard about the upcoming “Manhattan Declaration” announcement — click here for details — and then got the news that she could only write 570 words about this very complex ecumenical statement.
Non-Trinitarian AP style?
You can call me picky, but, hey, when it comes to messing with the fine points of Trinitarian theology, the Orthodox are known to be a bit picky. So please be patient with me for a moment.
Missing the point of Coptic tattoos
When my family made the decision to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, we helped start a tiny mission in the Tennessee mountains — in Johnson City, to be precise. In the early days, Holy Resurrection Orthodox Mission included a family in with very recent roots in Egypt and its Coptic Orthodox traditions.
American idolatry
This past June, I commented on the popular use of the word “icon” to describe Michael Jackson. In a way, the story below is a fitting follow-up to the summer stories of the deaths of other icons, such as Farrah Fawcett and Ted Kennedy. (Don’t forget this Wall Street Journal piece that made fun of how low the “icon” bar had been set.)
When the Times comes to call
The New York Times ran a very old story the other day, a story about a topic that has, in fact, been around for several decades.
