The holy terror of religion news

Last updated on: January 11, 2010 at 2:45 pm By tmatt

Journalists at the Newhouse News Service bureau in Washington, D.C., learned to appreciate the sound of editor Deborah Howell cutting loose during a good argument. As news spread about her untimely death, former colleagues sought ways to describe her linguistic style using words that could be printed in family newspapers. A Washington Post Tribute noted: “Some journalists swear like sailors; she swore like the fleet.” “She had a unique persona. She could be very intimidating. She knew how to browbeat... Read more

Obama’s year: Cairo top story?

Last updated on: January 4, 2010 at 5:46 am By tmatt

President Barack Obama deserved the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, said the Norwegian Nobel Committee, because his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen … cooperation between peoples” had created a “new climate in international politics.” Even Obama’s fiercest admirers admitted that his best work for peace occurred at lecture podiums, where the new president offered more of the soaring, idealistic words that helped him rise to power. Nobel judges, in particular, had to be thinking about his June 4 address at Cairo University,... Read more

Xmas is fake, so deal with it

Last updated on: December 28, 2009 at 5:55 am By tmatt

As the Christmas pageant dress rehearsal rolled to its bold finale, reporter Hank Stuever found his mind drifting away to an unlikely artistic destination — a masterpiece from the Cubist movement. The cast of “It’s a Wonderful Life 2” reassembled on stage at Celebration Covenant Church, a suburban megachurch north of Dallas. There were characters from a Victorian tableau, along with Frosty the Snowman, young ballerinas and children dressed as penguins. Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus were there, too.... Read more

Whatever happened to Advent?

Last updated on: December 21, 2009 at 5:39 am By tmatt

The Rev. Timothy Paul Jones kept hearing one thing when — four weeks before Christmas — he brought a wreath and some purple and pink candles into his Southern Baptist church near Tulsa, Okla. And all the people said: “Advent? Don’t Catholics do that?” This prickly response wasn’t all that unusual, in light of the history of Christmas in America, said Jones, who now teaches leadership and church ministry at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. “In the dominant... Read more

The soul in Dave Brubeck’s jazz

Last updated on: December 14, 2009 at 5:20 am By tmatt

Any jazz fan who has been paying attention at all during the past half century will recognize the quirky 5/4 riff that means the Dave Brubeck Quartet is swinging into its classic “Take Five.” But there’s another tune the pianist keeps playing that is completely different. “Forty Days” opens with the haunting, chant-like lines that define the most famous piece in his first sacred oratorio, “The Light in the Wilderness.” “Forty days alone in the desert, days and nights of... Read more

God and Caesar, 2009

Last updated on: December 7, 2009 at 5:04 am By tmatt

There is nothing new about Christians deciding that, when political push comes to legal shove, they cannot render unto Caesar what they truly believe belongs to God. Nevertheless, it still makes news when believers vow to act on this conviction. “Through the centuries, Christianity has taught that civil disobedience is not only permitted, but sometimes required,” proclaimed a coalition of Catholic, Orthodox and evangelical Protestants on Nov. 20, in their 4,700-word “Manhattan Declaration.” “There is no more eloquent defense of... Read more

Faith on the Blind Side

Last updated on: November 30, 2009 at 5:18 am By tmatt

In the beginning there was “Big Tony” Henderson, whose dying mother urged him to pull his son Steven from a public school on the bad side of Memphis and take him somewhere to get a Christian education. But there was one big complication. Steven didn’t want to abandon his buddy Michael Oher (pronounced “Oar”), a street kid who slept on their floor most nights. “Big Mike” was afraid to return to the bleak foster homes he knew after police tore... Read more

Palin’s pastor meets the press

Last updated on: November 23, 2009 at 5:08 am By tmatt

The Sunday service had just ended and the Rev. Larry Kroon couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A journalist was chasing Wasilla Bible Church members in the aisles, trying to convince somebody, anybody, to dish about his flock’s most famous church lady. The craziness had started as soon as Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin became the GOP’s nominee for vice president. Suddenly, there were satellite dishes out front and worshippers were trapped inside, trying to escape to the safety of their... Read more

Quiet Lutheran worship wars

Last updated on: November 16, 2009 at 5:01 am By tmatt

If members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod have heard it once, they’ve heard their national leaders repeat this mantra a thousand times: “This is not your grandfather’s church.” That’s certainly what musician Phillip Magness experienced when he took a sabbatical at Bethany Lutheran Church in Naperville, Ill., and began a research tour after the 2006 release of the Lutheran Service Book. Since he led the committee charged with promoting the new hymnal, Magness wanted to see what was happening in... Read more

Archbishop kicks Gray Lady

Last updated on: November 9, 2009 at 5:56 am By tmatt

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times has long enjoyed flaunting her Catholic schoolgirl pedigree like a badge of honor. Still, the Pulitzer Prize winner took her game to another level in a recent column attacking Rome for its investigation of religious orders that shelter sisters who oppose many of the church’s teachings. Wait, is “investigation” the right word? “The Vatican is now conducting two inquisitions into the ‘quality of life’ of American nuns, a dwindling group with an average... Read more