“Go forward in all your beliefs and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine” — The Doctor The folks who created “Doctor Who” were well aware that, by creating a show centering on a noble alien who has limited control over time and space, they were sailing into an ocean of religious questions. Have I missed something or has the Doctor specifically avoiding using the Tardis to pay a visit to biblical times? A chat with the... Read more
Ten years ago, while working in the Dallas bureau of The Associated Press, I wrote a national package of stories commemorating the 40th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. As the nation paused today — the 50th anniversary — to remember Kennedy’s death on Nov. 22, 1963, I wondered if any enterprising journalist might produce a compelling religion angle. Enter Godbeat pro Peter Smith, formerly of the Louisville Courier-Journal and a favorite of your friendly neighborhood GetReligionistas. I say... Read more
The mistake showed up in news reports so often that it almost became normal, which is the worst possible thing that can happen with a mistake. Over and over, journalists kept pinning the “theologian” label on the Rev. Martin Marty of the School of Divinity at the University of Chicago. The problem, of course, is that Marty is one of the world’s best known church historians. In the world of elite academia, which is certainly Marty’s territory, calling a church... Read more
Movie junkets, and the stories that result from them, share a certain predictability — and it doesn’t usually involve any depth of discussion about faith issues. During my stint as assistant features editor at The Oklahoman in the late 1990s, I went on a few of them. In those days, the studio flew reporters to Los Angeles, put them up in nice hotels near the Santa Monica Pier and herded them through group, round-robin interviews with the movie’s stars. The individuals... Read more
It numbers a recent U.S. Postmaster General (John Potter), and a current associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (Sonia Sotomayor) as alumni, but that’s not why Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, New York, is making headlines right now. Rather, it’s because the school’s parent-teacher association had invited a retired Roman Catholic priest to speak about what The New York Times so delicately termed “the issue of same-sex attraction,” in a talk anticipated to — wait... Read more
And this just in. The editorial team of The Washington Post has published a direct quotation from an outside voice, a figure of authority, who supports the doctrines and disciplines of the United Methodist Church, which reflect centuries of Christian tradition on marriage and sex. This is the first time that this old-school journalistic device — a throwback to the days in which balance and fairness were journalistic virtues — has been used in the newspaper’s national-level coverage of this... Read more
The Archbishop of Canterbury has stated the Church of England was moving away from using faith as a criteria for admission to its church-supported schools, The Times of London reported last week. And the newspaper caught hell for it. The Church of England’s press office said this was untrue — a “creative piece of writing.” Was this a he said/she said (or wrote) dispute? The “he” being Justin Welby the archbishop of Canterbury and the “she” Ruth Gledhill, The Times‘... Read more
After years of covering the sexuality wars in America’s oldline denominations, I am well aware that different camps within these churches interpret the rites and vows of their traditions in different ways. The wordings in their rites have been known to change from decade to decade, as well. Still, one can state with certainty that in the rite in which he was ordained as a minister in the United Methodist Church, the Rev. Frank Schaefer spoke the following words or... Read more
All the necessary components were there: 83-year-old woman, beloved and career adjunct professor, cancer patient, devout and traditional Catholic, poor both in spirit and pocketbook, released unceremoniously from Duquesne University after 25 years of semester-to-semester service. Indeed, this piece from Slate easily could have trended toward the martyrdom of Margaret Mary Vojtko. The hashtag vigilante would have rejoiced, as many students and proponents of better treatment for contracting professors already had claimed her (#IamMargaretMary) as their social media rallying call. But readers... Read more
As we have watched the gossipy headlines roll past in recent days, I have found myself contemplating this question: Is it possible for anyone whose last name is “Cheney” to take a public stand that is not purely based on political considerations? I mean, I don’t know how many country clubs there are in Wyoming, but I have always considered former Vice President Dick Cheney to be the ultimate icon of the Grand Old Party’s establishment in this era. From... Read more
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