Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani’s joke after lightning disrupted the sound system at a debate hall as he started talking about his position on abortion has picked up a decent number of news notes around the Internet, in newspapers and on television newscasts. CBS News has a good summary for those of you who missed it:
I spent most of today walking around in Istanbul, or riding a bus from one part of the city to another. It is impossible to do this without thinking about Islam, secularism, modernity and the paradoxes of this tense nation.
There’s a lot of talk in the wake of Monday night’s Sojourners/Call to Renewal Forum on whether the subject of faith has become too interwoven in American politics and public life. That is an excellent question, but one I’m not going to address here because there are more relevant topics to discuss, such as the media coverage of the CNN-broadcast event.
Jack Kevorkian, the former pathologist and convicted murderer, was released from prison last week. It’s been interesting to see how the mainstream media have treated him and the euthanasia issue he is associated with. They’ve largely touted him as a compassionate, passionate doctor who helped terminally ill people in need of being put out of their misery. Any voices, such as those in the disability advocate group Not Dead Yet, that note that most of those who were killed with Kevorkian’s help weren’t terminally ill so much as disabled or depressed — were silenced.
The big winner in last night’s Democratic debate, according to a bunch of thinker-types, seems to be Sen. Hillary Clinton. She sounded presidential, she knew her stuff and remains the clear leader of the field, they say. But did she sound like a Midwesterner?
Anyone who knows anything about life in the USA knows that one of our strongest forms of civic religion is Christian football.
One of GR’s regular commenters, Rathje, drew our attention to one of the most lively discussions about religion I’ve read in a great long while.
So the Guardian ran an Associated Press story on Saturday about Pope Benedict XVI approving recognition of martyrdom for an Austrian who was beheaded by the Nazis for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army. The story ran far and wide.
In case you were wondering, the Associated Press reports that presidential aspirants include seven Roman Catholics, three Methodists, three Baptists, one Episcopalian, one Presbyterian, one Mormon and one who is “simply” a Christian.
