Sorry about the headline, I just couldn’t stop myself.
Pod people: Breivik a liberal Lutheran terrorist?
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Unconscientious objector arrested in bomb plot
I had this completely unrealistic thought last week about how nice it would be to have a nice long delay before the next terrorist-related news item. But just yesterday news broke about a plot to attack Ft. Hood, the same site where Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people two years ago.
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Seeing the ghosts in a prison hospice
Every now and then, someone in our comments pages accuses your GetReligionistas of arguing that the way to improve religion-news coverage in the mainstream press is to have more religious believers invade America’s newsrooms. After all, “get religion” is a Bible Belt phrase for someone having a conversion experience of some kind.
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Resigned to partial coverage
As I read The New York Times’ somewhat celebratory coverage about the first legal same-sex marriages in the Empire State, I sensed that everyone was happy, save those predictable few cranks from the Westboro church.
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Not all atheists are alike
A few weeks ago there was quite a brouhaha over an atheist challenge to a street sign honoring 9/11 victims. The name of the street is Richards Street but underneath the sign at one intersection is another street sign saying “Seven In Heaven Way” to honor seven local firefighters who were killed on September 11. And so newspapers and media outlets ran with the story. Most news stories seemed fine. One, I recall included quite a few atheists objecting to the complaint on the grounds it was petty or hurtful.
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Crystal Cathedral confusion
You might remember some reports earlier this month that the Crystal Cathedral megachurch in California had ousted the Rev. Robert H. Schuller from its board and before the reports seemed to backtrack. We have a new report today from the Associated Press that the Crystal Cathedral has restored the voting rights of its founder on the church’s governing board. Unfortunately, the early report tells us very little about the decision, offering us about this much:
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What he said (about Norway)
At this point, I think most journalists have reached the point that they know that Anders Behring Breivik (a) has self-identified as a “Christian,” (b) yet he also made it clear that he is not a Christian believer, in terms of beliefs and practice and (c) that it is bizarre to call him a “fundamentalist,” in any historic sense of the word.
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To tweet or not to tweet
Yesterday morning Washington Post writer Gene Weingarten asked readers an ethical question based on a true story — should a reporter ever smoke pot with a source? The question had a few details for readers to consider. The reporter didn’t smoke pot currently but had in his past, he was having trouble connecting with the source who was offering the pot and the sharing of the drug would help build up that trust. And, importantly, the Post has a policy that reporters should never do anything illegal while on the job.
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Skirting at edges of faith
Even better, stories about people who hit rock bottom and find their way out of the pit appeal to me.
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