In a recent obituary for Russell S. Doughten Jr., an “Iowa filmmaker who made post-rapture evangelical movie series,” the Associated Press attempts to explain the evangelical view on the End Times: Evangelicals think true believers will ascend to heaven and those left behind will fight a war between Jesus and the Antichrist. While it is true that some evangelicals believe that (sort of), that’s not the only – or even the historical – view held by evangelicals. It’s hard to... Read more
Everyone ready for another war? Ready or not, it appears that we are about to go to war with Syria. Or, as the Washington Post says: An imminent U.S. strike on Syrian government targets in response to the alleged gassing of civilians last week has the potential to draw the United States into the country’s civil war, former U.S. officials said Tuesday, warning that history doesn’t bode well for such limited retaliatory interventions. It’s all happening rather quickly and there... Read more
Other than arguments about the United States becoming entangled in Syria, and Miley Cyrus coming unwound at the MTV shindig, the big story the past few days here in Beltway land has been — thank God — the 50th anniversary of the “I Have A Dream” speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., at the Lincoln Memorial. The other day, the Divine Mrs. M.Z. Hemingway touched on some of the wonderful coverage that led up to this event. Check... Read more
”The question is, should this indictment have ever been brought? Which office do I go to to get my reputation back? Who will reimburse my company for the economic jail it has been in for two and a half years?” So said former Labor Secretary Raymond J. Donovan to The New York Times following his acquittal on state charges of fraud and theft in 1987. Accused by the Bronx DA of attempting to defraud the New York City Transit Authority... Read more
In the wake of the events of 9/11, I had the honor of taking part in a forum on religion and the news at the University of Nebraska that, no surprise here, featured a keynote speech by historian Martin Marty, an omnipresent scholar who has probably done as much as anyone to promote serious work on the Godbeat. The point of the talk was that it is getting harder and harder to say what is religion news and what is... Read more
Need a new role model after #MileyCyrus? Try Sister Vivian, a rockin’ 100yo nun who’s pushing for women priests http://t.co/AagH92HIWu — Karen Chen (@ckaren15) August 27, 2013 In a perfect world, an internship with a major American newspaper would bolster the lessons learned in Journalism 101. In such a setting, an intern would receive real-world experience and gain a better understanding of the importance of reporting fully and fairly on all sides of a story. I fear that the Chicago... Read more
So here’s a weird story, out on the Associated Press wire: A man accused of stealing his father’s body from a Detroit cemetery with the hope of bringing him back to life has pleaded guilty in exchange for avoiding prison. His name is Vincent Bright and he pleaded guilty to one charge of disinterring a body. So I guess that’s illegal now. In any case, the big question here is not the Who and What and Where and When so... Read more
One of the big ideas of this website, oft repeated in a variety of wordings, is that if journalists want to understand real events in the real lives of real people in the real world, then — more often than not — they are going have to wrestle with very real religious issues. At some point, journalists have to take religion seriously and let people talk about the religious beliefs that help shape their actions in life. The following story... Read more
Your GetReligionistas normally do not spend much time looking at ideological media outlets, such as National Review or Mother Jones. But rules are made to be broken. The progressive outlet Mother Jones has a great straight news story right now that many other outlets seem to have downplayed or missed. And it has an important religion angle. The piece reveals how internal documents show that the FBI completely mishandled information that could have helped avoid the Fort Hood massacre perpetrated... Read more
What lays behind the Anglo-American press’s failure to report on the chaos in Egypt? While there have been bright spots here and there in the coverage, the mainstream press appears to have dropped the ball, giving a stilted view of the “people’s coup” that overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood government of Pres. Mohammad Mursi. The claims coming from the liberal media in Egypt and pro-democracy activists is that the BBC and other major Western news agencies are pro-Muslim Brotherhood. Arab newspapers... Read more
GetReligion
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In