There’s no avoiding the fact that sexual abuse of children is an unbelievably sordid and distressing topic-particularly when it occurs in in what should literally be a sanctuary.
Religion enters stage left
One of the big stories of last year was President Barack Obama’s religious outreach efforts. And yet the rise of politically liberal religious groups was horribly undercovered. Instead we saw a lot of stories about how evangelical Christians were broadening their areas of interest. It’s a weird blind spot considering that the religious groups supporting President George W. Bush and Republicans in general are always well noticed by the media.
Raiding GetReligion's vault o' hits
GetReligion celebrates its fifth anniversary this week, and contributors will mark the occasion with lists of our five favorite posts from the past year. I’ll kick this off.
Style choices on abortion talk
It would be hard to write a more angry, snarky headline than the one atop that piece by Ken Shepherd that the Newsbusters crew shot over the bow of the nation’s best known evangelical magazine.
Untold Super Christian stories
Art Stricklin of Baptist Press had an excellent profile of the faith of Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin earlier this week. Unfortunately, the article seems to be one of the only works of print journalism to be on top of Tomlin’s life-story of faith.
Crown of victory in the arena?
A football fanatic friend of mine whose very name screams predestination — Calvin — noticed something interesting in the prayers last night during vespers.
Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, Catholic
I know it will be hard, but for a moment try to ignore the fact that former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is an African-American.
Maybe baby, baby, baby, baby ...
So whaddya do when you are assigned to cover a story about a woman who just had octuplets (that’s eight, if you are counting) — and already has six young children?
Rabbit at rest
John Updike, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist known for his detailed portrayals of life — the mundane and the ecstatic — died this week. I didn’t get the chance to read him until about 10 years ago when one of my best friends introduced me to his prolific work. But I really enjoyed his prose and also what seemed to be a distinctly Lutheran approach to sin and justification.
