Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
The Senate’s passage of health care reform legislation was a major victory, though there’s a big difference between winning a battle and winning the war. There’s no solid evidence as of yet that the House is going to accept the Senate’s legislation as it’s written. The President appears to concede the issue may not be resolved into February.
If there is anything that I truly enjoy, as a reporter, it’s talking with articulate, sharp people who are totally comfortable in their own skins and open about what they think and believe.
How do you sum up how billions of Christians across the world observe the birth of Christ? It’s difficult to do. This Associated Press round-up begins with a completely unfazed Pope Benedict being knocked down by a deranged woman and ends with 47,000 Filipinos, displaced by an erupting volcano, eating Christmas dinner at shelters. It includes the sad news that some Christians in Pakistan fear marking the day, still scared by the Muslim riots targeting them from earlier this year.
If your holiday plans include seeing a recent movie, you’ve got a wide range of spiritually themed films to choose from, according to Robert W. Butler of the Kansas City Star.
So Bob Dylan went and made himself a Christmas album, instead of a holiday album. It ends with him singing “amen” at the end of a non-ironic “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Many will note that the album does not contain a performance, ironic or otherwise, of “Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel.”
It’s that time of year when concerts of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah occur with seemingly ubiquity. The New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini reviewed one such performance yesterday, remarking that the bass “sang the repeated ‘the dead shall be raised incorruptible’ and ‘we shall be changed’ with such prophetic vigor that the prospect seemed almost terrifying.” I read a review of a different Messiah concert in the same paper a few weeks ago.
A new Pew report entitled “How religious is your state?” is giving reporters an opportunity to spell out local angles of national statistics. Meanwhile, a recent Pew study on worldwide religion freedom has generated less coverage.
As the Divine Ms. MZ mentioned the other day in her “Nightmare on Capitol Hill” post, abortion is the issue that simply will not die in the ongoing debates about health-care reform. Right to life issues also hover in the background in those arguments about care of the elderly, too.
David Kirkpatrick had a fascinating profile of Robert P. George in the Sunday New York Times magazine. George is a Catholic public intellectual — a professor at Princeton who writes about policy and politics. The first thing to say about the piece is that it’s a great idea. I’ve been reading George for years but, then again, I’m the type of person who reads First Things and The Public Discourse. The average Sunday New York Times magazine reader probably doesn’t. Considering the influence George has on conservatives, a profile makes perfect sense.
