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I’m down here in Houston where my church body — the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod — is having its 64th triennial convention. This is the second convention I’ve attended as an adult and it’s always a lot of fun to catch up with folks from across the country and have those in-depth conversations about theology and practice.
In the mythology of journalism, there is this story about a chart that is — or so it is said — hanging on the wall of a generic Associated Press bureau. The chart is supposed to help editors figure out the news value of disasters that take place around the world, when it comes time to decide which stories end up on page one and which ones are buried inside.
An Associated Press story this week headlined “Lawmakers turn to faith leaders” has it all, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
When it’s too good to be true, it is, at least for some New York Times reporters writing a prisoner conversion story.
If one looks up “reform” in a dictionary, it’s obvious that, when used as a label, this is a pretty good finger-pointing word, a term that separates the good guys from the bad guys. For example, when used as a verb:
Apparently, a major religious obscenity trial in Moscow has been going on. I only know this thanks to a New York Times story, the Times being one of the few papers left these days that has the resources to do its own foreign coverage:
Kate Murphy recently wrote for The New York Times about the proliferation of dream groups where people gather to discuss their sleep experiences. The story is mostly experience-quote-experience-”expert” opinion, but I was glad she at least mentioned that dreams might be associated with religion.
There is some seriously conflicting information out there right now concerning Crystal Cathedral founder the Rev. Robert H. Schuller. The Los Angeles Times, which has the more recent story, explains:
What we have here is another one of those branding stories, kind of like the old trend story about Southern Baptist churches taking “Baptist” off their church signs or a certain purple campus in Fort Worth that is trying to focus on a TCU image, as opposed to the old Texas You Know What University thing.
