When death comes knocking

When news of Christopher Hitchens’ esophageal cancer first hit the news, blogs, Twitter, Facebook news feeds, there was a lot of cause for concern and several requests for prayer. Then a few people paused and said, “Wait, does Christopher Hitchens even want anyone to pray for him?”


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Don't leave Cordoba reporting to pundits

We could probably spend weeks looking at the media coverage of the mosque proposed to be built near Ground Zero. One of the things I find so interesting about this story is how so much of the reporting on the mosque and its backers is being done by non-traditional media. And many of the mainstream reports seem less interested in that aspect of the story than looking at the opposition to the mosque. It creates a weird media climate where the best news and analysis comes from blogs and pundits and, well, the worst treatment and analysis comes from blogs and pundits.


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Gay priest firestorm, in retrospect ...

While I was on vacation, the mainstream press experienced another mini-storm of coverage linked to an old simmering story. I refer to the release, by the Italian weekly magazine Panorama, of a cover story — backed with covert videos — about the private affairs of gay Catholic priests in Rome.


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Complexities with conception and Islam

We spend a lot of time reading stories that miss an obvious religion angle or ones that don’t give enough space to explain some fundamentals. Our eyes widen at stories that do a nice job of explaining complex issues in under 1,000 words.


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A room with a religious view

One of the things that annoys me about reporting is how we spend so much time looking for and writing about dramatic news hooks that we miss the day-to-day drama of real life. I almost never see my religious life reflected in a given news story. My congregation is not driven by trends. We worship in largely the same way Lutherans have always worshiped. This does not make for exciting news coverage, as you might imagine.


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Julia Roberts' Hindu practice

I just returned from a glorious Seattle vacation, stopping in an airport bookstore to see what I missed for a week. Here’s what I gathered from the newsstands: Bristol broke it off, Chelsea tied the knot, California judge reversed Proposition 8, Time published a startling cover on Afghanistan, Shaq will go to Boston, and Brett Favre joked about retiring.


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Haters gonna hate

As I may have mentioned here a few times, I bleed orange and blue. My dad raised me to be a Broncos fan and I will never shake it. This year’s pre-season coverage is interesting because we obtained one Tim Tebow in the draft. Now, I’ve had lots of discussions with other Broncos fans about whether they think this was a fantastic move or not, and none of them have centered on Tebow’s faith in Christ.


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