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Allow me to jump in here quick with a shameless plug for an essay by a friend of mine, producer Alice Rhee of MSNBC, who has posted a lengthy guide to “evangelical” — whatever that word means today — reactions to the reality that is the nation’s new Liberal Oldline Protestant In Chief.
As a culture, we are still in the midst of the great secular holy season called the NFL playoffs. That means GetReligion readers will have to put up with a few more reports about faith and football, as opposed to the civil religion built around faith IN football.
The Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education completed its report on the health of U.S. seminaries and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops posted the report this week. The in-depth look at seminaries was prompted by the sexual abuse crisis that received so much attention a few years ago. The report was generally positive and said that the situation at seminaries had improved in certain areas. The Catholic News Service sums it up this way:
The following bit of local news may not be the best evidence of a declining newspaper industry, or the media’s overall challenges in covering religion, but I must say a word about The Indianapolis Star‘s decisions to cut the short prayer on page A2 next to the chuckle and horoscope and then bring it back a couple of weeks later.
It’s hard to write about a minister without talking about what the man believes, in terms of the Christian faith. At the same time, I imagine that it’s hard for folks at the edgy Style section of the Washington Post to write about faith issues, period, especially when dealing with a Civil Rights Movement giant who is now in the orbit of President-elect Barack Obama.
The fate of embryos and treatments to screen them for disease made news in England last week — but few apparent ripples over here.
I live in the same neighborhood as the U.S. Capitol where we will inaugurate Barack Obama as our next president. You would not believe the chaos — some real, some manufactured — as we head into this Tuesday. There are massive parking restrictions, road closures and bridge closures not to mention restrictions on what even pedestrians can carry within the security perimeter.
Veteran journalist Charles Sennott appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today to promote GlobalPost, which strives to be a less expensive alternative source for global news coverage (compared to the more comprehensive Associated Press). Sennott mentioned that every correspondent for GlobalPost will carry a Flip camcorder. This video report by Greg Warner shows how well the concept can work.
