Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
When I was growing up, two of my favorite books were In Cold Blood and Dead Man Walking. Both exposed the desolation, inhumanity, and cruelty of capital punishment — and both were hugely popular. But did either of them make the death penalty less popular? The data is not encouraging.
The iconoclastic chess genius Bobby Fischer – one of the most unique public figures of the Cold War era — lived a bizarre life that blended astonishing victories with mysterious choices that, to others, looked like intentional failures or lapses of judgment or something. You can read all about that in the New York Times obituary for Fischer, simply by clicking here.
In 1960, Catholic Democratic leaders were fractured over the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy. On the one hand, governors David L. Lawrence of Pennsylvania and Pat Brown of California had not thrown their mighty support behind the young Catholic senator. On the other hand, Connecticut state party chairman John M. Bailey and Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had come out for Kennedy. The rift seems to expose the decline of Catholic voters in the United States.
It must be fun, in a twisted sort of way, to be a religion reporter in those regions where the Anglican Wars are raging. The action just never stops.
One of the questions that we hear from time to time is why GetReligion devotes so much attention to abortion since, from the point of view of some readers, the issue is political or scientific, but not “religious.” Meanwhile, there are many supporters of abortion-rights who insist that people who oppose legalized abortion are — pure and simple — guilty of “trying to force their private religious beliefs” on other people.
Apparently I’m not the only American with a new little bundle of joy. Bucking the trend in other industrialized nations, we’re experiencing a little baby boomlet, with the most children born since 1961. Some 4.3 million babies arrived in 2006, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Did you notice? Once again, there wasn’t a single serious reference to religion or faith in MSNBC’s Democratic debate the other night. There was hardly anything said about God, church, or “belief” and not a word was said about prayer.
Gentle GetReligion readers! Please know that this post is not a shameless attempt to shoot the following paragraph from a William Booth feature in the Washington Post out into the search-engine universe at Google and Yahoo. Your GetReligionistas are above that sort of thing, I’ll have you know.
Reporter Manya A. Brachear of The Chicago Tribune had a fascinating story on her hands: a young Jewish movement that does not worship God. Brachear’s story began this way:
