Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Last week I highlighted some of the coverage of the jury that deliberated the death penalty for convicted murderer Steven Hayes. Many media reports did a good job quoting the jurors and affected family members even when those quotes included religious language.
It seems like every few months I read about another celebrity who has suddenly discovered they’re Jewish or that they at least might like to be.
Once again, a major mainstream news organization has decided to report on the fine folks of Oklahoma voting to ban Sharia law in my home state.
The other day we looked at the excellent Washington Post profile of Zachary Chesser, the American Muslim who threatened violence against South Park creators for not depicting Muhammad. And now we have another intriguing profile of another American Muslim terrorist. This time the report is in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The paper received seven handwritten letters from Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Memphis native who shot two men outside an Army recruiting office, killing one. That man, Pvt. William A. Long, is pictured here.
We’ve had quite a bit of very serious content lately about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and in lands nearby. The massacre in the cathedral in Iraq set off an important wave of new coverage.
One of the oddities of the current conflict with Islamic radicalism is how one bit player can have such a big effect on things. Take Zachary Adam Chesser, a Northern Virginian convert who threatened the creators of “South Park” for, well, not portraying the Prophet Muhammad. This led to an attempt to defend First Amendment freedoms through the Everybody Draw Muhammad Day. And that led not just to Pakistan blocking access to Facebook for a while but also to the founder of the day having to go into hiding, and change her livelihood, name and identity.
That was sort of my reaction to a Dallas Morning News story on a Southern Baptist church “making history” by adding women deacons.
Sports rivalries are nothing new, but when you add religion to the mix, that can create some extra drama. A Sports Illustrated feature describes the anguish Kyle Whittingham felt between coaching football at his alma mater Brigham Young University or–where he ended up–with the University of Utah.
There is a truly shocking journalistic development in the Los Angeles Times report about the sudden and surprising early retirement of one of the world’s most famous bishops — Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the leader of the tiny Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. He was, of course, the first openly gay and noncelibate bishop enthroned in the worldwide Anglican Communion.
