What we have here is a totally predictable story, to an almost stunning degree. It’s almost a non-story, from the get go. What has me confused, however, is whether or not The New York Times crew realizes that it is publishing a totally predictable story, a story in which there is not a single new or unpredictable element. You see, there are quite a few signs in the story that the Times folks know that there is little or nothing... Read more
Far and away my favorite headline of Friday was the one that ran in the Las Vegas Review-Journal: Experts almost certain world not ending today How great is that? And I say that as someone who was not quite as impressed as Romenesko with this front-page folio line from the Omaha World-Herald yesterday. The story is well done, with a nice look at calendars and apocalyptic thinking. It begins: A previously undiscovered zombie planet will not crash into the Earth... Read more
So, GetReligion readers, have you submitted a religion-rooted question yet to veteran scribe Richard Ostling, over at his new weblog? That would be the one called “Religion Q&A: The Ridgewood Religion Guy answers your questions” (click here for some background). Anyway, this week’s Ostling offering here at GetReligion focuses on a question that is sure to raise hackles in a few corners of the world of organized religion. The provocative question, from one Judy in Pennsylvania: The various Christian denominations... Read more
Is the pope Catholic? Wait. That’s not what I wanted to know. Here’s my real question: Is Grant Patton Catholic? “Grant who?” you ask. Patton is a Notre Dame football player featured this week in an inspirational sports column in The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Ky.: If there wasn’t already a movie about an unlikely Notre Dame football walk-on, defensive lineman Grant Patton might have scripts to browse. When he was a senior at St. Xavier High School in Louisville, he did... Read more
From coast to coast, the lawyers of religious groups and charities can almost quote the following legal language by heart. This is, of course, linked to the strange — from a church-state separation perspective — Health and Human Services mandate that attempts to create two different levels of religious liberty in the United States. Group health plans sponsored by certain religious employers, and group health insurance coverage in connection with such plans, are exempt from the requirement to cover contraceptive... Read more
A friend put this picture up on Google+ (so I guess that answers the question of whether people still use Google+!). Around the same time, a reader submitted this story from Fox News, headlined: Church devastated by super storm Sandy looks forward to Christmas mass At first I thought the reader submitted it because of the redundancy of calling worship on Christ’s Mass a “mass.” But that’s not why it was submitted, although it’s related to that issue. For years... Read more
“Don’t mention the war!” is the catch phrase from “The Germans” episode of the British television series Fawlty Towers. I thought of this episode and John Cleese when I prepared a story for GetReligion on the New York Times‘ and Los Angeles Times’ reporting on the Bundestag’s vote to protect the religious freedom of Jews and Muslims by forbidding courts to ban the circumcision of infant boys. The two Times were unable to get past the war in their reporting... Read more
Anyone who spends much time on subways and other forms of mass transit knows that a whole lot of religious stuff goes on while people are moving from home to work. I’m not just talking about the people with their sports pages and copies of 50 shades of hades or whatever. Lots of people on the Washington, D.C., Metro spend their commuting time doing studying their Bibles. Years ago, one of my students did a feature about the stash of... Read more
This week the Pew folks came out with a large Global Religious Landscape report. It’s a super fun read for anybody who follows this site. Yesterday, we looked at one story that came up short when discussing the significance of Christianity’s dominance. In the comments to that piece, reader MJBubba wrote: Not so fast on those 16% unaffiliated. I heard a radio news broadcast that briefly mentioned this story and, though I don’t recall their actual words, it sounded like... Read more
Back in my high school days, my family attended a Church of Christ in Fort Worth, Texas. Most every Sunday, our minister made the same request before he preached. “Hold up your swords!” he’d say, and we’d all raise our Bibles to show that we brought them. I don’t recall him ever asking us to hold up our guns. Of course, that was years before Texas passed a law allowing the carrying of concealed handguns. In the days since the... Read more
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