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For someone who’s been on the mainstream media’s radar for decades, James Dobson sure has a rough time being understood by journalists. Usually they call the radio psychologist an ordained minister. And they do it over and over again. Sometimes they think the full-time liberal bogeyman is calling for exorcisms when he’s talking about people getting “exercised” — as in worked up about — sex scandals.
This is one of those cases where I simply want to point out a story and urge GetReligion readers to check it out.
How many pieces have we read in recent months about how evangelical Christians are falling over themselves in a mad rush to support presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama? Every discovery that evangelicals care about more than just the sanctity of human life and traditional marriage is met with hopeful accounts about how the Republican Party is losing these voters to the Democratic Party.
The big news about the recent Newsweek “Finding His Faith” cover story about Sen. Barack Obama is that it was not written by Jon Meacham, the news magazine’s theologian in chief.
Is Pope Benedict XVI a political activist, an agitator for left-wing or right-wing issues? Rohan Sullivan of The Associated Press seems to think so.
Religion and public education have never been completely divorced in the United States. Considering religion’s historic involvement in education in Western societies, I doubt religion will ever be completely removed from public education systems in the United States. In fact, religion may be finding new ways to be involved in American public education.
The late 1980s and early 1990s were a golden age for stories about poor urban blacks. Besides great movies such as Boyz N the Hood and Hoop Dreams, there were great articles in major publications: Nicholas Lemann’s series on the black migration in The Atlantic Monthly (here is one early story); Darcy Frey’s profile of a high school basketball team for Harper’s; and Leon Dash’s profile of an elderly black woman and her family for The Washington Post.
The rescue of 14 hostages in the Colombian jungle last week could not have been more dramatic. Military intelligence agents infiltrated the leftist rebel organization and tricked them into handing over kidnapped presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors without a shot being fired. My absolute favorite detail in the story was that the Colombian operatives duped the bad guys in part by wearing Che Guevara shirts. If only this could end the scourge of Che Guevara shirts forever!
As a gentile, I learned to think of the Jewish people mainly in religious terms. Reading the Old Testament alongside the New Testament will do that to a goy.
