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I have no idea if there is a religion ghost somewhere in the sad story of Ashley Youmans Rae Maika DiPietro Alexandra Dupre — the 22-year-old “escort” better known as “Kristen” in the icky story of Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York.
The carving of India and the subcontinent into tense, clashing nations is, literally, the greatest tragedy of the 20th century that hardly anyone in America knows about. It was a nightmare so hellish that some of its images and stories are simply not mentioned. The denial is that deep.
As a rule, your GetReligionistas are fond of the regular Belief Watch column that appears in the crowded front pages of Newsweek. But I have a bone to pick with the recent mini-feature that ran with the headline, “Stop Your Sobbing — Now.”
Stephanie Simon had a fine Column One feature the other day in the Los Angeles Times about a battle that is brewing — avoiding this pun is impossible — down in Alabama between the Southern Baptists and the beer drinkers who view home-based microbrewing as a kind of sacrament. You gotta love the dateline, too — Harvest, Ala. — and the lede that takes us into the catacombs of some true beer believers.
That was one of the hot story angles that the mainstream press pounced on a decade or two ago when reporters discovered the snarky glory of covering the annual meeting of the CBA, which was once known as the Christian Booksellers Association. Among the insiders, this icky side of the Christian gifts industry is referred to with the overarching term “Jesus Junk.”
It’s clear, to anyone who reads major newspapers, that one of the story templates of this election is the attempt by top Democrats to reach out to church people. I mean, search this here weblog for the words “Democrats” and “pews.”
There’s a story unfolding down in Fort Worth, Texas, that raises an old issue about journalistic style. It’s one we’ve talked about here at GetReligion quite a bit, because New York Times editor Bill Keller raised it in his response to his newspaper’s self study not that long ago.
The news out of England is that the House of Lords has, in a landslide, voted to do away with Britain’s common — but almost completely irrelevant — law making blasphemy a crime.
