Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
If you were creating the Ten Commandments of daily Journalism, you would certainly find the statement, “All news is local,” somewhere near the top of the list (but after “Don’t bury the lede”).
Every now and then, the avid news reader clicks on a link or opens up a newspaper and is faced with something so strange that it simply cannot be comprehended. As we have seen recently, this seems to happen quite often in MSM coverage of religion.
What would you do if you were the pastor of an ordinary evangelical church and a member of your flock suddenly became the most controversial person on this planet?
I realize that it’s a bit strange to discuss a news story from the New York Post on this here weblog. That urban tabloid isn’t exactly the kind of institution that one associates with nuanced writing about a complex news topic like religion, let alone the fine points of liturgy.
As a rule, GetReligion doesn’t deal with opinion columns. However, the headline on this fiercely opinionated effort by Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post really caught my eye the other day:
You can call me picky, but, hey, when it comes to messing with the fine points of Trinitarian theology, the Orthodox are known to be a bit picky. So please be patient with me for a moment.
What we have here is a story with two acts, but it’s a drama that James Davison Hunter would completely and totally understand. If you need help with that reference, please click here.
