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Perhaps there needs to be a sub-blog that ONLY covers press reactions to “The Passion of the Christ.” No, I don’t think so. But Jack Mathews of the New York Daily News does have one of the first takes on the story that will keep this media fest alive for, oh, 11 more months.
I’m sticking with my hot-and-cold stance on The Passion of the Christ. I think it has moments of brilliance, but needed more of a Hitchcock approach to temper the numbing literalism of some of its images. I think Mel Gibson could have made a film that hit just as hard, without becoming such a festival of violence. I know what Gibson was trying to do with this film (stations of the cross for a media-soaked age), but I still question the theological balance of 15 minutes of flogging and 90 seconds of the Resurrection.
That would be Richard Ostling, the veteran religion writer for the Associated Press. This is the same Richard Ostling who did such high-quality God-beat work for Time in the days before cover stories on the agony of dog overbreeding and the like.
WACO — Every decade or so a journalism storm hits Baylor University, leading to a wave of ink about Baptists, sex and freedom of the press.
“Out the door” means that I am going to be on the road for the next few days and so will Doug. I will post when I can during lectures at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. I am sure that it will be a relaxing time, since there are never any controversies in Waco concerning religion and journalism.
Los Angeles Times media columnist Tim Rutten (access requires subscription) is asking some serious questions about the media blitz that is driving the same-sex marriage wave from the blue-state Northeast to the blue-state West.
There have been some interesting comments on the pro-abortion-rights spell checker issue, so I’d like to respond a bit.
Friend of the blog Rod Dreher has a fine story today in the Wall Street Journal, digging behind a national Godbeat story (studies on Catholic clergy abuse) to find a small story that illuminates the big one. Dreher is a national-level writer on this issue and many others who is hidden inside the editorial pages of the Dallas Morning News.
