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GetReligion readers who pay close attention to church-state issues this time of year — also known as the “Christmas wars” — just knew that this story was coming. Actually, in this case we are talking about a specific battle in the larger war that breaks out every year in mid-November, or thereabouts. It’s the battle over the creche in the public square (usually a civic lawn).
The topic of this Boston Globe magazine piece could not be more explosive — literally. It’s about suicide bombers and the controversial issue of why they do what they do.
So, set the way-back machine for about a year ago and remember the early coverage of this movement. The key was that the tea party core, the top leaders, were all about economics, not social issues. Their movement represented a chance for the Religious Right era to come to an end in God’s Own Party, with the drive for theocracy being crushed under a kind of brash grassroots Libertarian assault. The goal was to blend pickup-truck populists with the kind of rich country-club Republicans who went hunting with Dick Cheney.
During the press events for the Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson said one wise thing over and over when talking about the legacy of writer J.R.R. Tolkien. In a session in which I was present, he put it this way:
One of my childhood heroes — right up there with “Little House” author Laura Ingalls Wilder, Celtic great Bill Russell and jazz pianist Dave Brubeck — was cartoonist Charles M. Schultz. I still cannot believe that Schultz died (February 12, 2000) only hours before his poignant farewell to his readers ran in American newspapers.
Yes, ’tis the season to hear people arguing about Christmas, inspired by everything from the numbing effect of waves of holiday ads to the “Christmas Wars” coverage on cable TV news shows. At the same time, this is when small bands of traditional Christians in the West begin their brave attempts to honor the quiet, reflective season called Advent (or Nativity Lent in the East).
Long ago, in my Rocky Mountain News days, the Denver Broncos made a couple of trips to the Super Bowl. As you would imagine, newsrooms in Denver rolled out the heavy artillery to cover these events.
If you care about sports at all, you probably know that there was a rather interesting NBA game the other night in Cleveland, when the Miami Heat came to town.
