Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
A week ago, I returned from a long, fast trip that ended up in Bangalore and New Delhi, where I had the sobering opportunity to discuss religion writing in the context of modern India with several audiences of journalists, old and young, and a collection of academics and politicos.
Say what you will about the Church of Scientology, but its members are tenacious. I have some friends who left the church probably 25 years ago and they are still routinely contacted by members who, shall we say, encourage them to be careful with what they say about the church. And what’s interesting about that is that my friends actually have quite a few positive things to say about the church and what they got out of it.
I was toiling as a reporter in the God-forsaken bowels of Southern California when my managing editor sent out an email in response to the 2004 presidential election. The other editors hadn’t realized it, he explained, but religion was really important to a lot of Americans. The newspaper wanted to dedicate a reporter to the religion beat.
This isn’t a news story, which means that it has no direct connection to the purpose of this weblog. However, it is a insightful note by a veteran religion reporter who, sadly, now has to let his insights into the Godbeat trickle out through blogging at a site other than the one he used to call his own.
If you are interested in God and also in blogs that are about religion and God, then you are probably familiar with The God Blog, which is operated by the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. And if you are familiar with The God Blog, that means you are familiar with the work of the young religion-beat specialist Brad A. Greenberg.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting much of my news about Iran from Twitter. This weekend, many of the Tehran-related items were about Neda, a protesting woman who was killed with a shot to the chest. I have chosen not to watch, but there are graphic videos of the death. As those of us outside Iran are struggling to understand all of the social, political and religious nuances at play there, I must comment Robin Wright’s article in Time about the death’s consequences to the struggle there:
Every time I read a story from the Washington Post Foreign Service, it makes me sad that newspapers can’t afford to have correspondents throughout the globe. The latest exceptional piece was filed by Craig Whitlock and headlined “In German Birthplace of Reformation, a Revival of Interest.” Here’s how it begins:
