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Even as we speak, the journalist previously known as Mollie Ziegler — soon to be professionally known as M.Z. Hemingway — is preparing to walk down a church aisle and tie the knot. Pass the tissues, folks.
Every now and then, you get to see a reporter gently suggest that a major religious leader — take Pope Benedict XVI, example — has tried to pull a fast one. That may be what’s happening in this story earlier this week by New York Times reporter Ian Fisher about the pope’s complicated address on faith and reason, which included a highly significant illustration linked to Islam.
My latest column for the ethics and diversity team at Poynter.org is online, if GetReligion readers want to check it out. You may, however, hear a bit of an echo since this piece called “Articles of Faith” grew out of a July post on this blog titled “Visions of another Magdalene bestseller.”
Before I dash into classes today, I wanted to make a brief comment on the “Losing my religion?” survey that came out yesterday from Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion.
As you would expect, reporter Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times includes a passing reference to the impact of 9/11 on the spiritual climate in America. I am looking around online to see if other mainstream newsrooms do the same.
So the first question that I need to ask today is if andrew.white@frme.org is actually Canon Andrew White, who one would expect to be writing to this weblog from an address that would probably end with the domain name of his organization — which would be frme.org.uk, if you consider the URL for its website. The contact address is office@frme.org.uk. More on this in a minute.
Chasing a comment from a reader that led to a blog down under, it certainly seems that there’s another bizarre angle in the already hot story of the forced conversions of those Fox News journalists, American Steve Centanni and New Zealander Olaf Wiig, to Islam.
Since I live in Baltimore, in a neighborhood where we are not allowed the option of taking The Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun is my main newspaper at breakfast.
