Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
In celebrating its 150th anniversary, The Atlantic invited writers and artists to discuss the future of the American idea. The results, while not entirely disheartening, leave the impression of a people largely ill at ease with their nation’s future and, in a few cases, openly contemptuous of the country’s elected leaders (or, in the words of Greil Marcus, “those who presume to rule the nation”).
The Rev. Drew Phoenix of Baltimore is back in the news, as the United Methodist Church tiptoes back into the minefield of human sexuality.
I am well aware that many Harry Potter fans want GetReligion to help them answer this question: If Albus Dumbledore had a gay skeleton in his closet, why didn’t reporter Rita Skeeter of the Daily Prophet include that information in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore, her tacky, unauthorized, tell-all biography of the Hogwarts headmaster? Doesn’t that make his dark, dangerous and ultimately deadly relationship with the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald all the more scandalous? Or not?
I’m not sure whether to call it a meme, but there’s certainly a monotony to reports about the Religious Right’s indecision on which Republican candidate to support. The same few names keep popping up, primarily James Dobson and Richard Land, and I think the entire country must know by now that both men would refuse to vote for Rudy Giuliani.
Ann Rodgers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is a prolific religion writer. Using the hook of a seminar scheduled at a Roman Catholic seminary, Rodgers looks at the pain endured by religious adherents suffering from infertility.
As part of a Los Angeles Times series on homelessness, faith and values reporter Stephanie Simon spent some time in Denver looking at a government program that involves a Democratic mayor and a challenge to the area’s churches, synagogues and mosques to work with the 600 or so homeless families in the community in a mentorship program begun two years ago.
Did you catch this story about abortion rates worldwide? It’s based on a new study done by researchers with the Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood’s research arm) and the World Health Institute that was published in The Lancet.
It would be hard to imagine a news story that would offend a higher percentage of people in modern mainstream newsrooms than the trend, on Southern Baptist seminary campuses, to create “homemaking” classes to help women learn how to serve their husbands and the church as pastors’ wives.
