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The kidnapping of 21 South Korean aid workers by the Taliban in Afghanistan is one of the most neglected international stories by the American media. There are several reasons for this. Primary among them is that Afghanistan plays second fiddle to the conflict in Iraq and that there just are not that many American reporters in Afghanistan. But this story still matters in America.
Most of the time, when I encounter a religious reference in a mainstream news story I can figure out what it is doing there. However, I hit something the other day in Newsweek that really puzzled me and it still does.
Today I was crowned Miss America. Except by “Miss America” I mean my husband said I was “one foxy-looking pregnant lady.” It’s a shame that pageant organizers do not recognize this triumph and bestow on me the crown I so rightfully deserve.
Longtime GetReligion readers will know that my favorite place in the world is the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina, where my family flees from time to time to escape telephones, offices, commuting and, to a lesser extent, weblogs and email. If you can find Pensacola, N.C., on a map, then you own a really good map.
About a month ago I had lunch with tmatt, who gave me solid arguments for why the Harry Potter series were loaded with Christian themes and messages. I didn’t need much convincing since the arguments that the books were bringing children into the occult sounded a lot like the ones people used against C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and those are some of the best books ever written.
While visiting the blog of Episcopal priest Joseph Howard I came across a link to a new journalism and religion site. Funded by the Carnegie-Knight Initiative, the site has blogs, links to a Second Life community, and other features. Here’s how it’s described:
During the Culture Wars era, the U.S. Supreme Court has been forced to wrestle with this question: Can a government-supported advocacy of “secular humanism” (scare quotes were the norm) become a form of religion? I think the more important question is whether government-supported advocacy of Universalism is a form of doctrinal entanglement, but the hot-button phrase “secular humanism” was what grabbed the headlines.
When I first read Eric Gorski’s piece on evangelicals and art last week, I thought it was another home run for one of my favorite religion reporters. But I’m always praising Gorski — and Stephanie Simon of the Los Angeles Times, among others — and I thought it might be best to let the piece pass. But so many GetReligion readers — from a wide religious spectrum — have commented favorably on the article that I want to make sure we highlight it.
Lorenza Muñoz of the Los Angeles Times provides a serviceable and evenhanded report on FoxFaith and its effort to exploit the market proven by The Passion of the Christ and by Tyler Perry‘s several films.
