If you have picked up a newspaper in the past week or so, you have surely noticed that we are well into our culture’s annual Christmas Wars.
Holiday Target practice
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Clearly we were Left Behind
The debate over whether the Bible is an authentic historical record has been going on for more than 200 years. And historians are not the primary people affected by debate, it’s archaeologists. Archaeology relying on the Bible has become a way to explore the Old Testament and its discoveries can have profound implications in world politics.
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In praise of (disturbing) journalism
Here’s a hopeful note, for those who care about high-quality religion coverage in the mainstream press.
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Monkeyfishing
The teaser copy atop the December issue of Harper’s is simple — “Stanley Fish on Intelligent Design.” What fan of Stanley Fish or the Intelligent Design debate wouldn’t want to read that creative pairing of author and subject?
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Abortion, up close and personal
Sometimes a story full of quotes and graphic descriptions can get to the heart of an issue better than a story heavy in theory and complex details. A person can know all the facts and the statistics about abortion, but can that person really know what an abortion is?
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Blame the apples? Cover the oranges
The official Vatican document at the heart of the “gay-priest ban” story is now available online and it turns out that the leaked version was accurate, only it was missing the footnotes from the authors. We may hear more about that in the next day or so.
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One heart. One amazing story.
Within the larger story of Hurricane Katrina there was an amazing story about journalism — the stunning performance of the journalists at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Not only did this newspaper continue to cover the disaster, they did so with few if any resources since their own organization was caught up in the storm. Shut down, the newspaper evolved into a blog that continued — 24/7, as best it could — to break stories.
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Should priests defend Catholic doctine?
Our friends over at Beliefnet.com have posted an online poll that, to my way of thinking, precisely captures the MSM understanding of the current controversy over the Vatican and gay seminarians.
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Can a priest say "repent" in confession?
We seem to be nearing the end of the Vatican trial-balloon marathon about its document on the future of seminarians who disagree with the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality.
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