For the past three decades, Gold’s Gym and its imitators have gained market share at the expense of the YMCA and YWCA (aka the Young Men’s Christian Association and Young Women’s Association). A whole new culture of fitness for the body’s sake was spawned. Even the 1985 film “Perfect” could not avoid the conclusion that gyms became pick-up points. Now devout Christians are forming their own health institutions.
Pounding the polygamy beat
When Texas judge issued an order Monday allowing the parents in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to begin picking up their children, I noticed that the CNN headline was:
Outreach for atheists
As a believer, I am not quite sure how a nonbeliever would react to Thursday’s story in the Philadelphia Inquirer about an interstate billboard intended to reach out to atheists and nonbelievers in the area. See here how the story introduces the billboard:
Newsweek puffs Obama prayer team
Lisa Miller of Newsweek wrote about a heretofore unknown element of Barack Obama’s campaign: As many as 100 pastors call in to pray for Obama, including several famous ones, such as T.D. Jakes and Joseph Lowery.
Religion and changing Times
There are few things that journalists in Washington, D.C., like to talk about more than this subject — journalists in Washington. I am sure that this surprises GetReligion readers, especially those inclined to belief in the utter depravity of man.
The statistic that wouldn't die
So I’m reading Washington Post reporter Rob Stein’s article on the latest frightening report to come from the Centers for Disease Control and Research. The latest report is that efforts to get teenagers to delay sex and use condoms is “faltering.” But by frightening and faltering, they mean that the data suggest we’ve hit something of a plateau after years of improvements.
When you assume . . .
There’s been something of a trend among a certain subsection of evolutionary anthropologists to explain religion as the product of a gene. Not that there is any evidence of a religion gene, mind you. Heck, not that there’s any evidence that such a gene is possible! But if there was, you see, it could explain Methodists.
A Saudi parish? Last Egyptian belly dancer?
Here we go again. Newsweek has another one of those think pieces about trends in modern Islam that show movement toward a day when moderation will rule and extremists will be be disgraced as the fake Muslims that thinkers in the West hope and pray (if many Western thinkers pray) that they are.
Evangelism as hate speech?
A news story from across the pond about Christian preachers being told by police officers not to preach in a predominantly Muslim area is an example of how a news organization slant can present a relatively simple factual situation in any number of different ways.
