Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Every reader of GetReligion should hurry over to the Columbia Journalism Review and read Tim Townsend’s comprehensive essay about the religion beat titled “Love Thy Neighbor.” I can think of no better window into the world of journalism in general and religion reporting in particular than this article.
It’s a saying that I have heard repeated time and time again by people who study China or work there on issues of human rights: Anything that you want to say about religion in China is true, somewhere in China.
In the days preceding and following Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United States, we discussed some of the media coverage of whether politicians who publicly advocate for abortion rights would/should/could receive Communion at the papal masses in Washington and New York.
The Canton Repository, a Canton, Ohio, daily newspaper, has a story on Mother’s Day consisting of a series of quotes from a broad spectrum of individuals representing different religious faiths stating the obvious: mothers play an important part in religious upbringing.
No question about it, this is the picture of the day. Here’s the lede from the New York Times, taking the details right down to the one that will have tongues wagging a bit inside the Beltway:
Long-time GetReligion readers may remember that I have been, and remain, very confused about the meaning of the term “emerging church” and how it relates to that other confusing term “evangelical.” There was even a time, two years ago or thereabouts, when GetReligion.org was named one of the top weblogs linked to the “emerging church” movement. That struck me as most strange. It still does.
Sometimes when I’m watching Jeopardy, which I do every night, I like to guess what religion or denomination contestants belong to based on clues — the college they attended, the mission trip they went on, their hometown — from their brief introductions. So Newsweek‘s Sally Atkinson is a reporter after my own heart.
News reporters are starting to step up to the challenge of exploring the complicated issue of why a person joins a church. A pair of articles published this week explore both sides of the coin that is a person’s decision to attend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.
Why did Mildred Jeter Loving take the risky stand that she did, fighting the Commonwealth of Virginia’s law that said it was illegal for her, as an African-American woman, to marry the white man that she loved?
