Pod people: Presby-speak again

Last updated on: June 3, 2013 at 9:34 am By geoconger

The meaningless drivel that passes for public language these days was the major theme of my chat last week with Todd Wilken, the host of Issues, Etc. In our conversation broadcast on 24 May 2013, Todd and I discussed my article “Scotland the confused: Did Presbyterians back gay clergy?”, posted at GetReligion and talked about all that double-talk. I led off my GetReligion post with the observation: Something happened on Monday at the General Assembly the Church of Scotland — they appear to have become Anglicans. No —... Read more

Why can’t press get religion, when covering black churches?

Last updated on: May 31, 2013 at 12:08 pm By tmatt

Let’s face it. The mainstream press really struggles when trying to cover life in African-American churches. On one level, black churches are treated like giant political institutions that — in a city like Baltimore — speak for a crucial segment of the voting public. There is some truth in that view. Any student of American religion knows that, for generations, the pulpits of major churches played a central role in black culture, a place where strong, prophetic voices could be... Read more

Ohio State vs. Notre Dame’s ‘damn Catholics’

Last updated on: May 31, 2013 at 5:51 pm By mollie

Earlier this week, I saw someone tweet something about how the Republican Party “should never write off any block of voters. It’s horrible politics and it causes great damage.” I retweeted it with the note “Except Methodists.” For some reason, I’ve long thought it funny to pretend I have something against Methodists. When I first read the story about the president of The Ohio State University — Gordon Gee is his name — making derogatory remarks about Catholics, I thought... Read more

The big questions facing that out gay Catholic priest

Last updated on: May 31, 2013 at 10:16 am By tmatt

It is my experience, through my decades on the religion beat, that liberal Catholics genuinely love talking to mainstream news reporters. That said, I have also observed — click here for a classic example — that liberal Catholics, especially if they are wearing collars or have the word “sister” in front of their names, do NOT enjoy answering doctrinal questions in the vicinity of recording devices. Off the record chats? Sure. Background material for those wonderful paraphrased passages in The... Read more

German cardinal found guilty of being pro-natalist

Last updated on: May 30, 2013 at 1:09 pm By Joe Carter

One of the most common fallacies of our age is the assumption that simply because we prefer a certain set of social policies they must therefore be compatible. For example, I like donuts and wish they were free. But I also like the people who make the donuts and want them to be able to make a living wage. The only way my two desires can become compatible is if there is a third-party who intervenes, say, by paying the... Read more

Media coverage of religious profiling

Last updated on: May 30, 2013 at 10:16 am By mollie

So tmatt has us all doing this experiment of reading a daily paper. I haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in a very long time. I used to get both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post. Fifteen years and 2,000 miles later, I get the Washington Post. The thing that has struck me the most about this go around is how very, very, very thin the papers are. When did that happen? Some days’ editions are barely there! And... Read more

God and faith in Oklahoma tornado coverage

Last updated on: May 29, 2013 at 8:17 pm By Bobby Ross Jr.

In my first-person account of the Moore, Okla., tornado last week, I predicted that the faith and resiliency of the state’s residents would be a major theme in media coverage. Sure enough, it has been. I saw the devastation for the first time Sunday when I made my way to that side of Oklahoma City to work on a Christianity Today piece on the “Faith-Based FEMA”: At the edge of the disaster zone — just across the street from the decimated... Read more

Hanging out with Sheryl Crow and her kids — where?

Last updated on: May 29, 2013 at 2:31 pm By tmatt

While I have not lived in Nashville (yet), I have spent a lot of time there and know quite a bit about the town. Thus, I really enjoyed the new Associated Press feature about rocker Sheryl Crow‘s decision to move — as in pack up her life and really move — to Guitar Town and give country music a try. The story is full of all kinds of details that stick, if you get Nashville, but I thought it really... Read more

Media’s curiously wrong-headed posession obsession

Last updated on: May 29, 2013 at 3:53 pm By mollie

Last week I made fun of that Associated Press story that claimed Pope Francis was “obsessed” with Satan. In the comment to that piece, reader Martha Keefe remarked: Mollie, perhaps the newspapers share the same view of alleged demonic or diabolic activity as evinced in this sermon by the Presiding Bishop of The Anglican Church, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, whereby when in Acts 16, St. Paul cast out a demon from the possessed slave girl, it was because “But Paul... Read more

Haunted story or not? On vampires, Satanism and murder

Last updated on: May 28, 2013 at 1:58 pm By tmatt

Day after day, the stunning story of young Morgan Lane Arnold has unfolded in the pages of The Baltimore Sun, with each revelation only making key elements of this bloody crime more and more mysterious. Here are some of the core details. Sometime after 4 a.m. on May 10, Arnold’s boyfriend allegedly stabbed her father to death. The boyfriend told police that Arnold left a sliding door unlocked and urged him, in a barrage of personal messages, to kill her... Read more