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A GetReligion reader north of the border — not one of the Web Elves — dropped me an interesting note a day or two ago about the unfolding drama within the Anglican Communion.
Strange. A decade or so ago, this story about the World Council of Churches and Israel would have been a page one headline — for sure. Now, Religion News Service seems to have it almost all to itself. Here is some of the key info: “The World Council of Churches has urged its 347 member denominations to give “serious consideration” to pulling investments out of Israel in protest of what it sees as mistreatment of Palestinians. . . . Rabbi Gary Bretton-Granatoor, interfaith director for the Anti-Defamation League, dismissed the WCC as “irrelevant” but was nonetheless concerned that the divestment campaign has taken on a life of its own.” Wow. Is it a story that this is not a major story? Can the WCC still make news?
Let’s set the wayback machine to last summer, when one of the hottest stories linked to politics and religion was the state of Sen. John Kerry’s soul or, at the very least, his ability to receive Holy Communion in mainstream Roman Catholic parishes.
Anglican-beat reporters, please repeat after me once again: The Africans pray, the Americans pay and the British write the resolutions.
To experience today’s Peggy Noonan column, one really needs to call it up on the Web. It is, in effect, the first Noonan blog — only printed in a newspaper. What should we call that? Religion news and trends run all the way through it, right down to the last bite (the pope’s email address). Here she is on the Harvard holy wars about President Larry Summers: “What the Summers story most illustrates is that American universities now seem like Medieval cloisters. They’re like a cloister without the messy God part. Old monks of leftism walk their hallowed halls in hooded robes, chanting to themselves. Young nuns of leftist deconstructionism, pale as orchids, walk along wringing their hands, listening to their gloomy music. They become hysterical at the antichrist of a new idea, the instrusion of the reconsideration of settled matter. Get thee behind me, Summers.”
The Toledo Blade is digging into a story that has national hypernews potential — if other journalists can believe what they are reading. This isn’t another case of sexual abuse involving Catholic priests. It’s a case involving a murdered nun, stab wounds in the shape of a cross, memories of ritual abuse and fiends in robes. Summary: “Investigators have talked to numerous priests and former students at local Catholic grade schools to determine if they knew anything about children being molested in bizarre ceremonies involving a small ring of clerics, according to several people interviewed by police. Four women told detectives about being abused between the late 1960s and 1986 during cult-like ceremonies involving altars and men dressed in robes, the accusers told The Blade.” Stay tuned.
Think of it as the mirror image of the choices director Ron Howard has to make in creating a red-zip-code hit with The Da Vinci Code. Think of it, in the words of the ever-witty Amy Welborn, as The Chronicles of Marketing.
Charlotte Observer scribe Ken Garfield recently put out a thoughtful commentary for those in churches — think Anglican — with flexible Lents. The basic idea: Why not give up hypocrisy? This would, of course, be easier said than done. He picks on cultural conservatives, which is totally fair game in light of facts collected by the noted evangelical writer Ronald J. Sider. For example, 6 percent of adults who call themselves born-again Christians tithe and 25 percent of born-again Christians have lived out of wedlock with a member of the opposite sex. And so forth and so on. Nevertheless, I’m curious. Anyone have data on the religious left? Could add to a good story.
