Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Say what you will about the Church of Scientology, but its members are tenacious. I have some friends who left the church 30 years ago and they are still occasionally contacted by members who encourage them to be careful with what they say. And what’s interesting about that is that my friends actually have many positive things to say about the church and what they got out of it.
Admittedly, this story might seem a bit stale. The news passed last month when the plight of little Ela Reyes was reported over and over on network news and the morning talk shows. Dahlia Lithwick, in a Slate article about whether a family law judge can forbid a father from taking his daughter to church, summarizes the background well for those who missed it:
Bloggers everywhere cringed after Radar falsely claimed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts was stepping down. “JGR would sooner die-literally-than give Obama the chance to appoint his successor,” said one expert. Supreme Court replacements are, as Ron Burgundy might say, kind of a big deal. That is why Justice John Paul Stevens, who turns 90 next month, is receiving some buzz treatment from media outlets like the Washington Post.
Some GetReligion readers may have heard that there is this little battle going on here in Washington, D.C., about health-care reform.
Back in December, I had some passing words of praise for Matt Labash. I will make the obligatory disclosure that I’m friendly with him, but I don’t think that in any biases me when I say he’s easily one of the best magazine writers in the country. Just go ahead buy the recently released collection of his work and thank me later.
For a faithful GetReligion reader such as myself, joining the team of contributors is like a baseball fan invited to sit in the press box and share his opinions during the World Series.
Surely, I was one of the last pop-culture-friendly religion writers on planet earth to get around to writing about Avatar.
I was all set to make this a “Got news?” post. I had been reading rumblings about an upcoming Presbyterian Church (USA) report in the religious and conservative press, but nothing in the mainstream media. Here’s a sample religious media report and here’s a bit from the conservative Weekly Standard:
