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 New York Times‘ Gardiner Harris had a story about a controversial Obama administration pick. It seems that Dr. Francis S. Collins, the geneticist who led the effort to sequence the human genome, is facing some opposition on his path to heading the National Institutes of Health. Some are praising the pick, but not everyone:
Terry mentioned a report last week about Michael Jackson possibly choosing “plastination” as a grim sort of immortality. Now USA Today‘s Lifeline Live blog reports that speculation has continued about Jackson’s burial plans.
Does a saint’s intercession heal? Or are the faithful in the Roman Catholic Church praying with the saints to Jesus Christ?
The Michael Jackson funeral story continues to loom in the background of the current coverage about his death, while an even more bizarre angle about the future of the superstar’s body has emerged over in Germany.
Say what you will about the Church of Scientology, but its members are tenacious. I have some friends who left the church probably 25 years ago and they are still routinely contacted by members who, shall we say, encourage them to be careful with what they say about the church. And what’s interesting about that is that my friends actually have quite a few positive things to say about the church and what they got out of it.
First things first: His name is not St. George the Dragon Slayer. Most of the time, you will hear him called the Great Martyr St. George the Trophy-bearer, or a variation on that title. The key is that he died as a witness to his faith.
One of the best things about making a 9-hour flight on an airliner is that it gives you enough time to read an issue of Atlantic Monthly. Thus, on the way to Kiev, I finally got to read the stunning “What Makes Us Happy?” cover story by Joshua Wolf Shenk.
It’s getting harder and harder to read the coverage of the George Tiller murder, in large part because the Associated Press Stylebook doesn’t have separate references for “pro-life” and “anti-abortion.”
Last week NPR listeners got what some of them pay for — a thoughtful, consistently engaging look at the interdisciplinary field of science, and particularly brain science, and spirituality. Those who listened to Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s five-part series on the “science of spirituality” heard a diverse group of (mostly scientists) ponder the ways in which the brain is affected by spiritual events, including those with hallucenogenic drugs, meditation and near-death experiences.
