Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Back when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, I went on record saying he should be replaced by another Lutheran. I was joking but it looks like I was onto something. Sarah has covered the stories leading up to this moment, so it’s no surprise to GetReligion readers, but the Supreme Court is sans Protestants.
St. Louis may be best known for its Gateway Arch, but for GetReligion regulars, perhaps it’s best known for Tim Townsend. We’re regularly reading reports from Townsend, who has been the religion reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch since June 2004. He also writes a news analysis column, called “Keep the Faith,” and oversees the newspaper’s faith blog Civil Religion. He previously covered personal finance and consumer news for The Wall Street Journal.
When I think about great magazine features about religion news in the age of GetReligion, some of the first stories that leap into my mind are headlines like “The Jesus War,” which probed the roots of Mel Gibson’s “Passion” play on film, and “Jesus in the Classroom,” which offers an unusually balanced and nuanced account of the battles over religion and American history in the elite public-school classrooms of Cupertino, Calif.
The New York Times ran a huge page one feature on Anwar al-Awlaki. He’s the American-born Muslim cleric now active with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. He had ties to several of the 9/11 terrorists but his work with Fort Hood shooter and the Northwest Flight 253 underwear bomber have gotten renewed attention from the American government. President Obama recently authorized the use of a drones or other means to take him out — even though he’s an American citizen. And that was before we learned that last week’s Times Square bomb attempt was inspired — but apparently not coordinated — by al-Awlaki.
As someone who spent four years in Eugene, Oregon, a.k.a. Berkeley North, I had a fair amount of exposure to Rastafarianism. I think most people’s only contact with the religion — if they’ve had any at all — comes from college kids and/or big weed-smokers who invoke Bob Marley, the religion’s most famous ambassador. The upper-middle-class white kids at school were constantly sparking up the one-hitter between classes were derisively known as “Trustifarians,” as in trust fund Rastafarians.
I highlighted Ross Douthat’s excellent New York Times op-ed last time we talked about the censorship of the South Park cartoon. He had written a bit about what the incident meant in larger context:
Earlier this week, the New York Times ran a story about how the Vatican handled abuse claims against the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, the founder of the worldwide order Legionnaires of Christ. The story, which focuses on Vatican politics, hasn’t gotten as much play as the previous Times story attempting to link Pope Benedict XVI to an abuse case in Wisconsin. But this story also focuses on then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s role in handling the many claims against Father Maciel.
Anyone who knows anything about Islam knows that devout Muslim believers who practice their faith do not drink alcohol. It is not very hard to find this out, as this Google search shows (Muslim beliefs on drinking alcohol).
