Which is amazing if you stop and think about all of the important religious events and trends that made it into the headlines this week.
Rapture of Harold Camping's claims?
So it’s after 6 p.m. and as far as I can tell, most of us are still here. [Insert joke about how funny that is.]
Pod people: raptures, McGreevey & Osama
For this week’s Crossroads podcast, we talked a bit about media coverage of the group claiming the rapture is looming, as well as that surprisingly sad story about former governor Jim McGreevey and the abominable coverage of a Mass intention for Osama bin Laden. Host Todd Wilken threw me by asking for my thoughts about Matt Drudge. I defended news aggregators but cautioned that news consumers must be more cautious and skeptical while reading links.
A 10-year clergy abuse scandal?
Arnold and Maria's 'Catholic' marriage
Even on a remote tropical island, it’s been hard for me to escape news of the disintegration of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s marriage. My former governor and the First Lady announced their split last week, and the story has only gotten more sordid since.
Branding the rapture
Since coverage of the Family Radio Network started heating up in January, Bobby’s been all over it. You can check out his installments here, here and here. Family Radio Network is the group that’s predicting the end of the world at 6 PM tomorrow.
The power of generic public prayer
Suffice it to say that the Newspaper That Lands in My Front Yard has a complicated church-state story on its hands. It’s one of those stories that takes place when civil religion collides with free speech (and old local traditions) and the usual suspects start getting mad.
Not the Dungy way
During the NCAA tournament, a religion reporter asked me about the faith of Butler University’s basketball coach Brad Stevens. A few of my siblings attended Butler and one of them has a bulldog so surely one of us would know Stevens’ religion, right? We did some Googling and asking around, but it took a while to figure it out. No one had really thought to ask because he didn’t exactly point to the sky after they continued to plow through the tournament.
The surprisingly sad McGreevey story
When I first read this profile of James McGreevey, the former governor of New Jersey, I thought it was a pretty puffy piece. McGreevey, you’ll recall, resigned after a former aide accused him of sexual harassment. In one of the most exciting press conferences I can recall, McGreevey announced his resignation by saying “My truth is that I am a gay American.” Reporters live for this kind of stuff. I love a good sex scandal and I remember sitting in my newsroom with my mouth ajar, thinking “this will never be topped.” And then just five years later we had that press conference with South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford.
