One of the first things that your GetReligionistas do when preparing a post in our WordPress software is to head over to the “Categories” function box and click all of the relevant choices for how we want this item stored in our archives. It’s a far from perfect process that keeps raising questions. For example, “Are Pentecostals really evangelicals?” Or how about, “OK, I know that Jordan is in the Middle East. But how about Iraq and Iran? How close is close enough? Do I really need to create ANOTHER new category?”
Watching the jihad watchers
Ever since Muslim extremists commandeered passenger aircraft and crashed them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon — with another plane missing its target only because its passengers fought back — Americans have been very interested in Muslim extremism. Each terror attack committed by Muslim extremists since then has only fueled the curiosity and thirst for knowledge more.
LAT: Replacing reporting with boostering
There are puff pieces and then there are puff pieces. But this Saturday Beliefs article from the Los Angeles Times borders on well-disguised press release.
Something borrowed, something Hindu?
Pop singer Katy Perry and comedian Russell Brand married this weekend in India. Katy Perry began her career as a singer in the Contemporary Christian Music market so I was a bit surprised to read that it was a traditional Hindu ceremony. Maybe. I read that in the Washington Post, the Boston Herald, Entertainment Weekly, ABC News, Telegraph, Daily Mail, New York Daily News, MTV, and so on and so forth (this is a story of international importance). Here’s a snippet from a typical news report:
Don't ask, don't tell, don't cover
At this point, it appears that Democrats who are fighting to survive in red zip codes are going to make it to Election Day without a clear resolution of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” standoff. That’s the last thing they needed — a final wave of ads talking about a hot-button cultural issue.
Japan lives and dies with its ghosts
What we have here is one of those New York Times think pieces about an important trend among important people in an important corner of the world. This is something that the Times does really, really well, most of the time.
Do all readers speak Arabic?
For anyone who paid attention to the news last year, the words shouted by the gunman responsible for a rampage that killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Food Hood, Texas, come as no surprise.
Christianity vs. yoga?
I’m always surprised at how many people don’t know the relationship of yoga to Hinduism. The Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” had a piece on the topic a few months ago. In “The Theft of Yoga,” Aseem Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery at the University of Minnesota medical school and co-founder and board member of Hindu American Foundation, wrote:
Brilliant doubters, dull believers?
Once again, our friends at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life have unleashed another survey that is causing waves of ink to crash into the mainstream press. This time around, the numbers are rather predictable — revealing that Americans, as a rule, have lots of feelings about religion in their hearts, but not that much information in their heads.
