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Gordon Hinckley, the prophet and president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints died Sunday at his home in Salt Lake City. News of his death was carried on most media outlets. I thought most media outlets did a great job conveying Hinckley’s importance to the church.
As you would imagine, I have received a fair amount of email lately about ESPN anchor Dana Jacobson’s profane performance at the Atlantic City, N.J., roast for Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, better known as the “Mike and Mike in the Morning” duo. This story continues to bubble on the back burner.
You really can’t write about major league baseball player Josh Hamilton without focusing on the faith aspect of his story. Even the reporters writing about him admit this in their articles.
The January/February issue of Psychology Today features a 5,000 word story, ostensibly on clergymen who lose their faith. While you have to get a copy of the dead tree version to read the whole thing, you can read the first few hundred words here. Having just finished writing a history of atheism for another magazine, I was excited to read the piece.
Long ago, during my days in the Church-State Studies program at Baylor University, I took a course on contemporary religious movements and “cults.”
Stephanie Simon of The Los Angeles Times scored a coup: She interviewed young evangelicals who left their previous lives to live as monastics. Her story was rich with detail and nuance. But I wonder if she missed a major story.Simon introduced readers to five young adults, plus their children, who left their comfortable suburban homes for a spartan, communal one. As you may imagine, Simon described in great detail the travails and triumphs of such a radical life change. Here is how she depicted the decision by one of the families, the Porrett’s, to leave the house:
The force is growing in North Wales. What started as something of an Internet joke has grown into something more significant and concrete as a group of Jedi-loving residents of Holyhead are taking their 2001 census statements seriously that their religion is Jedi.
Every couple of years, journalists and pundits proclaim the death of the red-state/blue-state divide in American politics.
