Billy Graham’s 95th birthday bash: Happy or harpy?

Last updated on: November 14, 2013 at 10:51 am By Tamie Ross

In the 1984 hit movie “Sixteen Candles,” Molly Ringwald’s character, Samantha Baker, awakens on what should be the biggest birthday of her life. Only, her family has forgotten the occasion. Overshadowed by her older sister’s impending nuptials, Samantha spends the day hoping one of her family members will remember. Hilarity ensues. Eventually everyone wishes her a happy birthday — including her hunky, sportscar-driving, secret crush Jake. He shows up. And he brings cake! They kiss. Yippee! I couldn’t help but... Read more

The Boys from Buenos Aires?

Last updated on: November 15, 2013 at 9:43 pm By geoconger

What is an ultra-conservative Catholic? A member of the Society of St Pius X? A faithful Sunday communicant? A Trappist monk? Or is it someone whose name appears on the subscription lists of both My Daily Visitor and The National Review? There is nothing improper, from the perspective of good journalism, in describing someone as an ultra-conservative Catholic — newspapers make editorial assertions in their headlines and ledes all the time. It is what draws the reader into the story.... Read more

NYTimes: Just WHO you callin’ a ‘conservative’ Catholic?

Last updated on: November 14, 2013 at 10:22 am By Mark Kellner

Sometimes I wonder if the leaders of The New York Times,among other media titans, take the late Justice Potter Stewart approach to obscentiy when deciding who is a “conservative” Roman Catholic. The famous jurist, you may recall, said of so-called “hard-core” pornography: “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it,... Read more

Close to home: Those Godbeat changes hit tmatt

Last updated on: November 13, 2013 at 12:30 pm By tmatt

What he said: “I’m glad to hear that Scripps Howard still as a religion writer on its staff. Seriously, I mean it’s a nice thing that, you know, that still exists in the media.” — Tom Hanks, at a press conference in 2009 For those who have not heard the news elsewhere, out in the Twitter-verse for example, there was a rather stunning announcement made yesterday that the Scripps Howard News Service is shutting down. That was the first domino.... Read more

The New York Times shilling for Obamacare, in news copy

Last updated on: November 12, 2013 at 9:58 am By geoconger

Religious liberty claims advanced in opposition to the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) are a cloak for bigotry, the editorial powers that be at The New York Times tell us. In an editorial published on Nov. 7 under the name of the editorial board, the Times summarized the Nov. 1 decision handed down in Gilardi v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Service by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. By a 2-1 vote, the court held... Read more

All together now: Archbishop Lori leads WHAT committee?

Last updated on: November 11, 2013 at 5:32 pm By tmatt

It’s that time, again. The U.S. Catholic bishops are back in Baltimore and the agenda includes the election of a new president to replace the remarkably charismatic (especially in his crucial mass-media duties) Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York. Speaking of omnipresent, the primary voice of authority in the A1 Baltimore Sun piece on the conference is the one and only Rocco “friend of the blog” Palmo of the Whispers in the Loggia weblog, who basically narrates the whole report.... Read more

Does help for communities justify churches’ tax exemption?

Last updated on: November 11, 2013 at 12:19 pm By Richard Ostling

GORDON ASKS: (Paraphrased) Secularists challenge tax exemptions for houses of worship, saying this denies valuable revenue to communities that get little or nothing in return. True? THE GUY ANSWERS: False, judging from new scholarly research. Putting money aside for a moment, those knowledgeable about troubled urban neighborhoods will especially shudder to think what local conditions might be like if taxation forced financially strapped congregations to disband. Even small, struggling flocks that lack the money for professional social services provide their... Read more

How many atheists does it take to form a ‘megachurch?’

Last updated on: November 10, 2013 at 9:05 pm By Bobby Ross Jr.

In pitching a trend story for a national audience, a headline-friendly catchphrase goes a long way. Take the expression “atheist megachurch,” for example. That’s sure to grab editors’ attention, right? Such was the case over the weekend as The Associated Press reported on what it characterized as atheist megachurches “taking root across the U.S. and around the world.” The top of the story: LOS ANGELES (AP) — It looked like a typical Sunday morning at any mega-church. Hundreds packed in... Read more

CNN goes long to say little about clergy and Obamacare

Last updated on: November 10, 2013 at 4:27 pm By Mark Kellner

In Ecclesiastes 12:12b, we read: “Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body.” Alas, the same might be said for this story from CNN’s Belief Blog, which spends an eye-popping 2,746 words to tell us something truly astonishing: some Protestant pastors don’t want to talk about aspects of the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, also popularly known as “Obamacare,” from the pulpit. All righty, then. Next! Well, there is a tad more to the... Read more

Pod people: Stopping in again at the Death Café

Last updated on: November 9, 2013 at 12:58 pm By Tamie Ross

Pull thoughts and words from my head and form sentences with them on a screen? No problem. Speak into the air for those interested to hear? A little more of a challenge. Yet this week my number came up; it was my first turn at the mic for GetReligion’s “Crossroads” podcast. I chair-danced while the introductory music played. I tried to answer host Todd Wilken’s questions honestly and succinctly while adding the insight he asked. I prayed silently throughout that... Read more