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Compared to the Womb story, this next Presbyterian Assembly story may not seem terribly exciting. But it is spicy in its own way. The Denver Post‘s Eric Gorski is one of my favorite religion reporters. He takes the time to understand and accurately convey the theology of complex stories’ various players. Well, Gorski had a different kind of story worth noting in Wednesday morning’s Post.
Two weeks ago, I wrote a little column for Scripps Howard about a little movie called Facing the Giants that seems to have started a little controversy. I have given up trying to predict when people are going to react to a column. You know?
My family’s roots are in East Texas and I love old stories about small towns in the great Piney Woods region. One of my favorites concerns a radio announcer in Huntsville, back in the era when stations used to play sermons on the air during the church hours on Sunday morning and evening. The sermons were so old that they were on records instead of tapes.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., does not seem to be running for president in 2008. That doesn’t mean he will not do so, just that he is not laying the necessary framework to make a run at the Democratic nomination. He’s certainly soaking up the praise and good favor of his colleagues as major media outlets continue the drumbeat promoting the nation’s only African American senator.
It seems that religion columnist Bill Tammeus of the Kansas City Star recently went to a seminar in the Washington, D.C., area that focused on issues in religion news coverage. While he was there he met religion writer Neela Banerjee of The New York Times and, since then, the two of them, and the 30 or so other journalists who attended, have been trading emails about their work.
With all of the excitement surrounding the Episcopal convention, the action at the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s 217th General Assembly has been overshadowed. (And the coverage the Presbyterians have received in recent months has not been terribly positive, involving their budget and membership woes.) But Richard Ostling filed a story with the Associated Press that’s pretty juicy:
The question of whether to place the elderly in a nursing home is all too common in America. The benefits are there, as are the negatives. Religion plays a big factor, but the quality of medical care seems to trump theological concerns at some point in the life of an elderly person.
Like many Americans, I became extremely curious about Islam and its adherents in recent years. I joined a local study group to read the Quran and learn about Islam and have read many books on Islamic teachings. But even though I’m pretty sure I know a bit more than the average American, I’m not sure how much I really understand about this religion.
