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There’s something quentessentially American about Elizabeth Gilbert’s winsome 2006 quest memoir Eat, Pray Love. The bestselling book, which details Gilbert’s trek through Italy, India and Indonesia, has many ingredients U.S. audiences seem to love: the search for spiritual enlightenment, healing, lasting love, and a great dinner.
The Arizona Republic‘s coverage of an alleged conflict between the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its efforts to convert Latino Catholics troubles me in a number of ways. But before I get into my criticism, I think it’s worth saying at the top that just covering this issue is an excellent first step. The challenge faced by the reporter is that this is a massive issue that requires a close examination into a number of different areas that are sensitive, conflicting and anything but straightforward.
I thought I had heard everything about the deep, deep roots of the sexual abuse scandals — plural — in the Roman Catholic Church. I say “plural” because they really go back to the early 1980s and the waves of acid have been rolling in ever since.
Life has rescued and published a haunting series of 11 photographs taken by Henry Groskinsky in the grim hours after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968. Two of the images include legendary Baptist preacher Will Campbell, whom Life identifies as William Campbell and Bill Campbell. Life describes Campbell, author of the acclaimed Brother to a Dragonfly, only as a longtime friend of the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, in a photo showing the two men embracing as they grieve.
Lisa Miller is the religion editor at Newsweek. You may remember her from that very unjournalistic cover story she wrote purporting to advance a religious case for same-sex marriage.
The custom around these parts is to tell about yourself before entering the blogging fray. It seems only right, rather like a shrink who must submit to therapy before taking on his own patients.
We may need to start some kind of petition to the Associated Press to ask for some kind of warning in the stylebook about use of the word “devout” when used to describe religious believers. We have seen similar issues with the word “practicing” in front of the word “Catholic.”
Sometimes the media amazes me with its ability to ignore the way religion influences people’s lives. Often the result is that religion is hinted at, suggested in an off-hand manner, or noted in an unintentionally ironic manner.
So the ever snarky team at the Washington Post Style section decides to do a feature story about male circumcision.
