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If a mainstream media outlet raves about a movie or a restaurant or a book, you’d expect that its reviewer did due diligence in checking it out. One would hope that the reviewer actually saw the movie or ate the meal or read the book. Why then, I wonder, does Time magazine praise a new religion website that is so essentially flawed?
That’s what seemed to be brewing in the land of Shakespeare when it became public knowledge that British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had banned 22 people from entering the country (only 16 are named). Apparently the drawbridges against the “least-wanted” have been raised since October, but Smith only just made the decision to publish the list, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.
It’s very hard to write a story about homosexuality, conservative activists, hypocrisy and politics without veering into religion — at least a little bit.
In a strange kind of way, a team of reporters at the Washington Post metro desk (including my long-time friend Hamil Harris) has written a fitting sequel for that recent news feature about the First Family’s struggle to find a church home, one that fits them in terms of political realities and the liberal Christian beliefs that drive the heads of the household.
As some of you know, my time as a regular contributor at GetReligion is coming to an end due to other commitments relating to my legal career. I hope to continue to contribute from time-to-time on various issues, however I know I will miss regularly contributing to the community in this space.
I tend to agree with my fellow libertarian Penn Jillette about people of different religious backgrounds attempting to convert me: I’d be more offended if they didn’t. It shows they care about me temporally and eternally. So I don’t personally share the disdain so many people have for the Mormon practice of baptism of the dead.
While the rest of the world seems to understand that swine flu is not really about the swine, Egypt continues its mass slaughter of every pig in sight. It is on a national campaign to rid the country of its estimated 300,000 pigs in the name of public health.
If you read the comments threads on the Divine Mrs. MZ’s recent post on Notre Dame, President Barack Obama and the U.S. Catholic bishops (or some of them, at least), you can see that we are veering back into familiar territory. I am referring to the tendency among many mainstream journalists to make references to trends among “Catholic voters,” “American Catholics” and other broadly defined terms that reveal next to nothing in terms of usable information.
Back in February, Terry noted the story of the election of Father Kevin Thew Forrester as the new bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan. Thew Forrester’s views on Christianity are less than traditional. He wondered why the story — lighting up the blogosphere — didn’t attract more mainstream media attention. And a few weeks ago Terry noted an interview Arkansas Democrat-Gazette religion editor Frank Lockwood secured with Thew Forrester.
