While the population of the country is over three-quarters Christian, it is not surprising that there are regions where other religions predominate or are large enough to make a significant impact.
Visit with a coal-country pastor
It’s time for a compliment. The Baltimore Sun has a very simple and very moving story today that does what I have been hoping someone would do all week — take us inside the doors of the Sago Baptist Church.
The pastorpreneur
Because I’m a new subscriber to the London-based magazine The Economist, you’ll likely hear more from me about this excellent source of news and commentary. Appropriately for the day of the week, I sat down to read an article titled “Jesus, CEO,” and was alerted to a term that I hadn’t seen in the American press, and I believe it accurately sums up the megachurch movement: the pastorpreneur.
Follow-up question for Anne Rice
Do you ever wish that you could have been present during an interview between a major newspaper and a major newsmaker or popular personality? This happens to me when I read a really amazing quote and then think to myself, “OK, if the reporter didn’t follow up on that by asking this question, he (or she) should be abandoned in journalism purgatory.”
Take Pat Robertson, please
The latest wave of Pat Robertson madness has rolled on throughout the day. Here is a large chunk of one of my favorite statements. The name of this game is to guess the source.
Jesus Christ on trial, again
I wanted to make a note of a remarkably weird religion story playing out in Italy where a judge has ordered a priest to prove “that Jesus Christ existed,” reports The Times.
Back to our "no comment" department
Here we go again. Click here. Then click here, again and again. Then leave your comments. Your friends at GetReligion will attempt to read them if we have the strength.
Please talk to the coal miners' pastors
I believe the woman’s name was Anna Casto. She appeared several times during the Wednesday NBC Nightly News coverage of the Sago Mine disaster. Her comments were blunt, agonizing and stunningly on target. I wish I could quote them to you, but I do not have Tivo and, for once, got caught without a notepad nearby.
Happy twelfth day of Christmas!
I know it sounds weird, but I think December is the hardest time of year to be a practicing liturgical Christian. During Advent we mark a solemn time of prayer and preparation for Christmas. And then when we’re ready to party and celebrate the 12-day Christmas season, very few other people are. Just when I get my tree up, everyone else is taking theirs down. There’s a predominant cultural feeling that Christmas has passed and it’s on to New Year’s, college football champsionships and the Superbowl. In fact, the notion that Christmas is a 12-day season is so forgotten that most people have no clue what that Days of Christmas song references. Which is probably why no one brought me my 12 drummers drumming today.
