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The Rev. Brad Braxton’s trials at Manhattan’s famed Riverside Church have been much reported since a few members of the congregation unsuccessfully sued their new pastor in April for receiving a pay and compensation package that exceeded $600,000 annually.
Whatever Vanity Fair pays its national editor, Todd S. Purdum, he earns every dollar with expertly crafted hit pieces. His lengthy takedown of Bill Clinton last year was satisfying for readers long troubled by Clinton’s various indiscretions, political and otherwise.
Does a saint’s intercession heal? Or are the faithful in the Roman Catholic Church praying with the saints to Jesus Christ?
I was stunned the other day by the total lack of interest in the religion elements of the big story here in Washington, D.C., as in the tragedy on our Metro subway system. The coverage has been major league, as you would expect, and the story on which I focused was one out of many worthy of discussion.
As interesting as South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s bizarre and tormented press conference was — the one where he announced he had something going on with an Argentinian woman, it was his wife’s statement about the matter that I found the most intriguing. In her statement, she overtly references her Christian faith, even quoting scripture.
The saga of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford keeps getting stranger. Today we learned that when Sanford ostensibly came clean at his tearful press conference last week that he was, in fact, still lying.
Here’s a question that we have asked here at GetReligion — more than once, in fact — and, now, it’s being asked at the Wall Street Journal.
Last week, an Iowa high school football coach was shot dead in the school’s weight room. Police charged a 24-year-old former player. The headline made Drudge but I quickly forgot the story and didn’t see much follow-up. Many people talk about the sports page as if it’s got the best writing in the whole newspaper. And they’re probably thinking of reporters like Josh Peter, an enterprise reporter with, of all outlets, Yahoo! Sports. He looked at the shooting and came up with a story about theodicy, forgiveness and the strength of tight-knit communities. Here’s how he began:
One of concepts that causes my journalism students the most grief is finding the line between making statements of personal opinion and making statements that draw logical conclusions from facts that have been stated on the record or verified in a document. It’s the line between editorial writing and news, when you get right down to it.
