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 last time we tuned in the Southern Methodist University soap opera involving the George W. Bush presidential library, we were seeing lots of people claim that, for the faculty, this was an issue of academic freedom and, for a vocal chorus of Methodist clergy, it was a fight over W’s sins against “Methodist values” in foreign policy and a hot cultural issue or two.
The smart folks over at Harvard University came out with their report on how to overhaul the general education curriculum, more commonly known as the core curriculum. As expected, the requirement asking students to study religion as a particular subject was dropped.
An interesting story has been brewing out of the John Edwards campaign for the Democratic nomination for president. He hired a couple of bloggers to run outreach to the liberal blogosphere. And their credentials were so good that it kind of backfired on him.
The British continue to be haunted by reports of terrorist plots. However, there was an important twist in one of the recent stories and, ever since, I have been watching to see if journalists will dig into a crucial detail.
Disgraced pastor Ted Haggard is in the news again. A few days ago his email to members of New Life Church was released to the media. Eric Gorski wrote up the story for The Denver Post:
If you can get past this week’s lurid Newsweek cover art, there is actually some decent content in there. (And the photos that were included in the cover piece defeat the entire purpose of the article.) But on to more important and religion-related items.
There is an old media theory saying that effective advertisements are like small sermons. They show people struggling with a problem and then they claim to show a solution to that problem.
In predictable fashion, the Indianapolis Colts sloppily walked all over the Chicago Bears last night and Colts head coach Tony Dungy gave God the credit for the win. The big question for us here at GetReligion is not whether Rex Grossman should be allowed to remain in the National Football League, but how and when the media should highlight Dungy’s comments.
I tried to find a religious news angle for the Super Bowl halftime show so I could discuss how awesome Prince is, but I had to give up.
