Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The “Mitt Romney cannot win the Republican nomination because he believes in weird things” chorus is singing again. The major theme this time around, as explained in this this excellent blogpost by Ross Douthat, is whether it is constitutional for voters to apply a religious test to candidates for public office.
I joined a few friends from church yesterday and went to the Save Darfur rally on the National Mall. It was a very interesting event, featuring everyone from Manute Bol to George Clooney. My favorite speaker was Paul Rusesabagina. It was not a large rally — only several thousand people, I think — but I was struck by how many of those gathered had signs or T-shirts announcing their religious affiliation. I saw many Christians, but a ton of Jews.
What do you know? It appears that the people who are most dedicated to reading blogs are very similar to the people who are most dedicated to reading newspapers and, now that you mention it, highly dedicated to reading — period.
Alan Cooperman at the Washington Post has an interesting story about a federal faith-based initiative to prepare inmates for release. I think it’s a very important story and I could not agree more with Americans United for Separation of Church and State in raising concerns. Having said that, let’s look at how Cooperman frames and discusses the story:
First let me praise Jeffrey Fleishman of the Los Angeles Times for taking a religion-haunted story — the debates over immigration in Europe — and letting the ghost dance right out in the open. Besides, it’s hard not to read a story with a face-slap lead like this one: “Europe is buying more coffins than cribs.”
Franklin Foer became the editor of The New Republic in March, and this already seems to be good news for people who seek lively and opinionated coverage of religion. Only a few weeks after publishing a lengthy cover-story attack on Richard John Neuhaus, it has now published a lengthy cover-story attack on Harold Bloom.
Tithing in this country is a bigger story than initially meets the eye. Every local newspaper should be doing stories on tithing. It matters.
The collision of religion and politics always makes for a good story. Last year the IRS opened an investigation into All Saints Church, an Episcopal congregation in Pasadena, for featuring a liberal political sermon two days before the 2004 election. Bradley Whitford, former Quaker, outspoken liberal and erstwhile star of The West Wing, is a member of the church and wrote up his thoughts about the action a few months ago.
It is one of the most controversial events in the history of the 20th century and hardly anyone in America knows about it.
