Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Sometimes the religious angles in a football story just jump out and grab the sports writer and force them to dig into the topic. For example, see here this excellent profile piece by ESPN.com’s Wayne Drehs on Kurt Warner. This is one of those athletes you simply cannot write about without mentioning his faith:
Bob Jones University is probably best known at this point for the 2000 presidential campaign controversy involving its ban on interracial dating. After then-candidate George W. Bush spoke there, he was criticized, and the ban was lifted on CNN’s Larry King Live show by the university’s then-president Bob Jones III.
Another chapter in the story of President-elect Barack Obama was written last night, and snippets are emerging about that section regarding the role faith played in that chapter. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has already updated their “Religious Biography” of Obama.
The big story in Friday’s Washington Post was headlined “God, Country and McCain.” The article was less on those three subjects and more an attempt to demonstrate the current mindset of young conservative evangelical Republicans on the eve of what could be for many of them their first electoral defeat as active voters.
Allow me to indulge myself again in the world of faith and sports. Don’t worry, something important — politics — may show up.
It was one of those ugly newspaper stories that makes you read and read until it becomes hard to turn away — kind of like seeing a car wreck happen in slow motion.
If you’re like me, you have probably been feeling a bit down in recent weeks as the White House race has, at times, veered off into a muddy ditch or two. It’s easy to argue about who has been throwing what, but there’s no doubt that both sides are getting hit. It’s especially depressing, but not surprising, to see all of the religion hooks in this muddy drama.
Clearly, we are going to see a wave of coverage this weekend — perhaps peaking on Monday — focusing on the Alliance Defense Fund and the protests being planned under its “Pulpit Initiative.” As a guy with a degree in church-state studies, I am both fascinated and stunned by what is about to happen. It’s like preparing for a giant — yet scheduled — train wreck, and a strategic one, to boot.
