Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Apparently Archbishop Charles Chaput struck a nerve with Mark Silk, professor of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America.
Once again, our friends at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life have unleashed another survey that is causing waves of ink to crash into the mainstream press. This time around, the numbers are rather predictable — revealing that Americans, as a rule, have lots of feelings about religion in their hearts, but not that much information in their heads.
At my home congregation in Oklahoma, our two Sunday morning assemblies drew 1,256 people on a recent weekend. That same Sunday, just 540 worshipers returned for the evening service. In a fellowship that traditionally has placed a high value on church attendance, that’s a lot of people “forsaking the assembly.”
CNN.com published 10 — count ‘em, 10 — articles or video clips yesterday about Bishop Eddie Long. If you don’t know who Long is, then you’re like the almost all Americans were one week ago, before the media blitz began with revelations that four young men at Long’s Atlanta-area megachurch were filing lawsuits claiming the minister molested them.
I have read a lot of Michael Lewis over the years — at least five of his books that I can remember, not to mention countless articles. His real gift as journalist is a knack for pure, unadulterated readability. The fact he’s able to write about esoteric subjects such as baseball statistics and credit default swaps and make them both understandable and wildly popular is no mean feat. Believe me, I’m envious.
Buzz words around the Religion Newswriters Association’s conference in Denver yesterday included “broccoli,” “ice cream” and “puppies” after some discussion about how journalists can get better at developing their precious online audiences.
GetReligion is well into its sixth year and, every now and then, I am reminded how much the writing that I do here has changed me in my work as a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, a task that I’ve been at for about 23 years.
