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I wrote a post here the other day about the resignation of Karl “Boy Genius” Rove in which I noted that the mainstream coverage of his exit did little to dig into his relationship with conservative Christians. This gap was really strange if you stopped and thought about it, in light of that voting bloc’s strategic role in the Bush era.
Let’s start with the classic Martin Marty quote, which is always good when talking about religion and the news. Marty has been known to say that, for many people, the word “ecumenical” seems to boil down to someone saying, “I don’t believe very much and you don’t believe very much, so we must have a lot in common.”
A long, long time ago, I was the religion writer and columnist for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver. It’s a fascinating city in a beautiful region (heaven, you know) and I envy people who get to work out there.
It’s easy to treat Mother Teresa as a plaster saint, a symbol of unattainable holiness. Contrary to the example of Teresa’s life, some pampered souls (speaking for myself, at least) turn her into an escape clause from Jesus’ call to die to ourselves: “I’ll never be another Mother Teresa, so I’ll just stay where I am, thanks.” Teresa’s posture and countenance suggested a soul deeply at peace with God, and thus better able to do heroic works of compassion.
It should be clear to just about anyone who reads major newspapers that we live in an age in which it is is safer to use religious language when describing secular sins than when describing what used to be called religious sins. It’s safer to talk about the sin of burning too much gasoline than the sin of lust. It is acceptable to judge certain secular forms of behavior, but not other forms of behavior that we have said are purely religious and private.
James Faust, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since 1978, died on Friday. He also served in the high-ranking position of second counselor to President Gordon Hinckley since 1995.
It’s not front-page news that Billy Graham has enjoyed varying degrees of access to every president since Harry Truman. The latest issue of Time, which publishes excerpts from the new book The Preacher and the Presidents by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy, reports some interesting new details:
I think the day has passed, here inside the Beltway, when powerful mainstream, hard-news reporters can actually sit in the Oval Office and informally offer advice to a president about this or that speech or this or that public policy (think JFK and the likes of a young Ben Bradley).
