Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Molly Moore wrote in Tuesday’s Washington Post that France’s national soccer team captain Zinedine Zidane, banished in the final minutes of Sunday’s World Cup final for head-butting an opponent in a moment of rage, is the “son of Christian Algerian immigrants.”
As far as All-Star games go, this year’s was pretty exciting. The National League was leading for most of the game until some American League player (sorry, I don’t follow that league enough to know names) batted a couple of runners home in the top of the 9th with a triple. I believe Bud Selig showed what a bad commissioner he is when he made homefield advantage for the World Series dependent not on the merits of the teams who got there but, rather, on the outcome of this game. How long, Lord, will we be under his reign? How long?
The most recent edition of PBS’ Washington Week included an interesting exchange between a member of the audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival and a panel consisting of leading journalists from Time, The Atlantic and NBC News:
Time‘s Jeff Chu asked the Presiding Bishop-elect of The Episcopal Church ten questions about her view of the church’s mission, the relationship between religion and science and the exclusivity of Christianity. While the quality of her answers will be the subject of debate, I think he used a great — and simple — technique for getting information out of Katharine Jefferts Schori. And her answers are fascinating, I think. For instance, she says this about what the focus of the church should be:
It is hard to spend eight hours jammed into those tiny, tiny seats that Virgin Atlantic uses in its economy class without talking to the person next to you. Yesterday, flying from London, I was seated next to an articulate Internet professional from Pakistan who was raised in Germany and now works on many projects here in America.
Frequently we discuss the troubles that mainstream media have with covering traditional religious thought. But religious outliers, while gathering senationalist news coverage, also suffer from poor media coverage. That’s why I was glad to see Arizona Daily Star reporter Stephanie Innes’ look at the Church of Cognizance, a group that advocates the use of marijuana. Reader Charlie Lehardy sent the story along.
As Terry has noted, the Archibishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, recently proposed a two-tier system of church membership in the Anglican Communion — the idea being that full and partial membership could save the Communion from schism. Anglican bishops in Nigeria responded this week. The Church of Nigeria is Africa’s largest Anglican church, with an estimated 17.5 million members, according to the BBC:
I’m holed up in an airport hotel in London and frantically trying to catch up on email. That’s why I am a bit late to this story.
