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A Southern friend in a cassock and collar sent along this thought for the day, by way of Garrison Keillor and his Writer’s Almanac out in Public Radio land. You can listen to this online, of course:
So I was talking to my wonderful mom last night and she mentioned an article about the Episcopal Church she read in “the newspaper” that had a notable error. I asked her which paper (Denver has two papers and they also subscribe to or receive other local papers) and she didn’t remember. Neither did she remember what day it ran or who wrote it. I asked her if she remembered that I write about the problems mainstream media reporters have with writing about religion. She did and said she meant to mention it to me earlier. So this is just a reminder to my mom and all other readers that we love it when you point out good and bad articles you read or segments you watch or listen to. Within a few hours or days at most.
The Style section of The Washington Post is known for blurring the lines, from time to time, between traditional news features and the first-person, magazine-style writing that once was labeled “new journalism.” The emotional, first-person piece by Anthony Shadid titled “The Bookseller’s Story, Ending Much Too Soon” is labeled an “appreciation” and that is what it feels like.
Harvard religion professor Diana Eck’s New Religious America: How A “Christian Country” Has Now Become The World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation looks at how changing immigration laws have shaped the country. She tells stories about Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.
For those still watching the Anglican wars, there is a crucial story unfolding down in Charleston, S.C., where conservative Episcopalians in the Diocese of South Carolina are waiting to see if the man they elected as bishop — Father Mark Lawrence — can be consecrated.
We’ve ranted and raved about the lack of knowledge important Americans like senators and Congressmen have about Islam, but now it’s time to have a fit about how little most Americans know about the religion that is all around them.
The original headline said: “Friends, we hear you and we know that the body-text font size in the new design is too small and it will be fixed very soon (tmatt said, writing this in a headline so that the text will be large enough for all of you to read, wink, wink).” I removed it to make the “recent posts” feature shorter, etc. etc. So now we begin the text of the post with:
I was going to ask young master Daniel Pulliam to write about this very GetReligion-oriented article over at the evangelical flagship Christianity Today, but then had second thoughts.
Sometimes Oprah is too much even for Oprah America. That’s the encouraging sign evident in two essays — one in Newsweek, the other in Salon — that take apart her enthusiasm for The Secret, the latest bestselling book (and companion DVD) that champions prosperity theology.
