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One of the trend stories right now in hip evangelicalism centers on what is called the "emerging church," a concept that is rooted in postmodernism and is just as hard to define.
Frank Rich is back and he’s still mad about The Passion and all of the hateful fundamentalists who made it one of the cultural events of the year. Once again, Rich’s goal is to paint the story in terms of Christians vs. Jews, rather than reading the evidence in his own reporting that it is largely a collision between traditional believers of many kinds and the powerful blue-zip-code coalition of oldline religious progressives and secularists. Rich says the last thing Americans will see on TV anytime soon is the nuanced, intelligent views of religious liberals. He’s right, sort of. Actually, the last thing Americans will see on TV is moral traditionalists who do not fit into the Falwell-Robertson-Donohue “straw man” chair.
As state by heartland state turned red on the night of 11/2, a few brave Democratic strategists began hinting that something would have to be done to move their party closer to the center of American life and, in particular, to lessen its hostility to traditional religious believers who once were part of the FDR-Truman coalition.
A long, long, time ago, during a press conference with Rep. Patricia Schroeder of (D-Colo.), I asked a question that I thought was perfectly logical. At the time, she was one of the most outspoken voices in the U.S. Congress on every imaginable progressive cause, especially abortion rights and other issues linked to the lifestyle left.
The sad reality is that there are many, many newspapers in this fair land that do not have trained, committed, religion-beat specialists. You know, the kind of professional religion scribe who can handle the pressure — year after year — of finding creative news-feature-story hooks for all of those ultra-familiar religious holidays that terrify city-desk editors.
Consider this a short update from down here in South Florida, where people continue to struggle with the results of the 2004 election. On one level, this is a Jay Leno talking point. On another level, this story is actually rather interesting.
A few years ago, the theologians at the prestigious Young & Rubicam advertising agency circulated, in house, an interesting little document about the sacraments of buying and selling.
For those who don’t have much to do in the next week, you might want to take a look at the post-Thanksgiving Christianity Today Online weblog on religion, culture, government, theology and public manners (I am sure I am forgetting something major). Amy Welborn had a nice headline for this: “370! Links!” Just for kicks (and because of massive intimidation) I slapped this baby into a Word file and the basic text of this one blog collection is just a smidgen below 14,000 words. Ted Olsen and Co. have even added a much-needed innovation — yellow highlighter pen-like splashes to point out the really essential stories. It’s the blog within a blog within the blog. It’s kind of an evangelical Zen thing.
Another day, another airport and another newspaper. In this case, I had some time to kill with the Miami Herald in the tiny airport in Key West. There were at least three items in this one issue of the newspaper that could merit GetReligion attention, in my opinion. So I will combine them into one post, starting with the best.
