Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The lead story on The New York Times Web site this morning was a heartbreaking report about Haiti’s children in the aftermath of the earthquake. The lead story now, of course, is about Apple’s new iPad (insert joke here about the name). Lest we drown in our obsession with Apple products (I’m included in this crowd), let’s take a minute to read about Haiti’s children.
Let’s gather ’round the TV as we celebrate one of America’s biggest holidays, Super Bowl Sunday. And if the game’s a dud we can laugh at the commercials, many of which feature beer and babes.
Christians at Christian institutions love to pontificate over how Christian the Christian institution should remain. That appears to be the case over at Northwestern College in Minnesota where a debate over its identity persists.
So far, nothing I have seen coming out of Haiti has changed my mind about how journalists should approach the basic “theodicy” story.
Brett Favre’s NFL season is over. Mark Sanchez’ is too. And with the Chargers collapse last week, so is mine. But for Kurt Warner, a phenomenal NFL career may be over.
When journalists who care about religion news make a case for improved coverage on this beat, we usually talk about the ways in which religious faith — in almost all cultures — helps shape the pivotal events in the lives of the overwhelming majority of people in this world. A wise, highly secular editor once told me that he recognized that, for most readers, it’s hard to talk about Life’s defining moments (births, baptisms, marriages, tragedies, illnesses, deaths, funerals) without talking about religion.
For those of you whose spouse didn’t force them to watch MSNBC all night last night, the big news is that somehow the unthinkable happened: Republican Scott Brown (pictured, right) won the Senate seat held, until his recent death, by Democratic Ted Kennedy. Until a couple of days ago, Democratic candidate Martha Coakley was considered a shoo-in. It’s not that Republicans haven’t won state-wide office in Massachusetts, it’s just that they haven’t had a Republican senator in many moons.
You can learn a lot about a family by observing how it handles fights. And Laurie Goodstein’s Sunday New York Times story shows that as the breach between James Dobson and Focus on the Family grows, all parties are keeping quiet and pretending everything is OK.
Haiti is a very complex, but intense, culture when it comes to religion. Thus, the more time that passes after this killer earthquake, the more journalists will be surrounded by stories linked to the faith of the locals and the faith of those who pour into the country to offer help.
