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How would you like to try to write a standard, newspaper-length obituary for the Rev. Billy Graham? How would you like to cover his entire life in somewhere between 600 and 2,000 words?
Long ago, when I was a graduate student in Baylor University’s church-state studies program, one of our professors liked to cut to the chase by saying the following: “Your religious liberties have been purchased for you by many people with whom you would not necessarily want to have dinner.”
I’ve given up trying to keep track of Entertainment Weekly‘s many annual lists. EW may be the most list-happy publication in pop culture, although it’s not as ambitious as Rolling Stone. For sheer pomposity, it’s hard to beat “The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”
Over the past few days, anyone interested in American politics has read more than a few stories about U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, a Republican stalwart from Idaho, and his adventures in a men’s bathroom in Minnesota. It will be some time before people in this town are able to talk about a politician taking a unique “stance” on a tricky issue without thinking about him.
There is an irony in the story of South Korean missionaries taken hostage by the Taliban. Dr. Leroy Huizenga sent us a note about this CNN story on the Taliban’s statement that the hostages will be released. Here’s the key section:
“The Iconoclasts,” Jason Zengerle’s New Republic report on evangelicals who have become Eastern Orthodox, is a largely commendable effort to let a few of these converts speak for themselves, but it presents an overly political picture of evangelicalism.
It seems strange, two years later, to reflect on the destruction wreaked by Hurricane Katrina across North America, but most memorably in New Orleans. As the years go by, it will be interesting to see how much coverage the continuing aftermath receives. Some believe that the coverage helps the city and the region, while others believe that the continued focus on the problems keeps the city and the region from returning to normalcy.
I am tempted to think that the word “evangelical” and several words connected to it have become too vague to be of any use to mainstream reporters. I know that’s impossible. There are simply too many people who use “evangelical” as a noun or an adjective these days.
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.
