Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Michelle Boorstein of The Washington Post wrote an exceptional front-page story on Tuesday about the uncertain future of the Church of the Saviour, which the Rev. Gordon and Mary Cosby founded 60 years ago. Cosby preached his final sermon — at age 91 — on December 28.
Journalists in Colorado have a really hard, hard religion-related story on their hands. At the heart of it is the question of what to do when you are dealing with inflammatory, even terrifying quotations and they are, to pour gasoline on the fire, second-hand quotes.
There’s an episode of 30 Rock where the main character, played by Tina Fey, turns her Arab neighbor into Homeland Security because she thinks he’s training for an act of terrorism. As she’s contemplating whether to turn him in, she walks by a public service announcement that says “If you suspect ANYTHING, do EVERYTHING.” She finds out, after he’s taken away, that the neighbor was auditioning to compete on The Amazing Race.
Following in the footsteps of Brother LeBlanc (or at a respectful distance behind him), here are a few semi-serious, and semi-safe, predictions for the New Year.
Inspired by David Gibson on his Pontifications blog, I will float these predictions for the Godbeat in 2009. I lack the courage to commit myself to any one answer, or the insight to write every item with serious intent.
Oh my, this is good religion reporting — that was my first thought when I got about halfway through the first in Laurie Goodstein’s New York Times series on overseas priests serving Catholic parishes in the United States.
I’m always amazed when I read a piece of journalism that takes what I call the “anthropological approach” to some weird religious group. It seems particularly odd when the group in question is Christians in America. Usually it’s evangelical Christians who get this special treatment.
Sometimes I get the feeling that reporters struggle to cover annual events. This leads to less coverage of the liturgical calendar and its festive celebrations and penitential seasons than to events marked by trend-driven church bodies. You don’t see much coverage of Pentecost, marked annually by millions of American Christians, compared to, say, the sex sermon series being pushed by some pastor in Michigan.
This is not the Christmas story that I wanted to write about, today, but The Los Angeles Times has raised a question that makes it, for me, a must cover for this weblog.
