Terry Mattingly

Time for religious and secular ghosts

Anyone who knows the history of religion writing in the American press knows that Time played a major role in proving that religion is, in fact, news and, come to think of it, that cover stories about religion can move large numbers of copies off the store shelves. Cover stories about religion have often fueled debate about American religion (like the old yet still famous “Is God Dead?” story) as well as reflected the news.


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Suck it, MSM (a GetReligion poll)

Let me note, following the gentle snark from the Divine Mrs. M.Z. the other day, that her GetReligionista comrades had, in fact, noted the pronouncement from the public intellectual Kathy Griffin. We simply were waiting for M.Z. to return with her soft, nuanced touch on the keyboard in order to address this weighty topic.


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Fog, candor and the story that goes on forever

This is one of the Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon’s early posts at his TitusOneNine blog, reacting to the statement released yesterday by the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops.


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Breaking: U.S. believes in God, sort of

This USA Today story has been in tmatt’s infamous GetReligion Guilt file for some time now, but I could not throw it away. It seems that, with the Pew Forum on such a roll, religion-beat reporters are awash in interesting poll data about religion, values, politics, etc. In other words, we are still in the aftershocks of the “values voters” and “pew gap” political earthquakes of 2000 and 2004.


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Labels, labels and more Lebanon labels

My first reaction, when I read the bold Washington Post headline, was negative. I am not fond of religious labels, but this looked like a futile attempt to avoid one. It said: “Anti-Syrian Lawmaker Killed in Beirut Blast.”


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