Journalists may not know the precise meaning of the word \u201ctheodicy,\u201d but, year after year, they know a good \u201ctheodicy\u201d story when they see one.<\/p>\n
The American Heritage Dictionary defines this term as a \u201cvindication of God\u2019s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil.\u201d Wikipedia calls it a \u201cbranch of theology \u2026 that attempts to reconcile<\/p>\n
the existence of evil in the world with the assumption of a benevolent God.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were three \u201ctheodicy\u201d events in 2005, so the Religion Newswriters Association combined them into one item in its top-10 story list. What linked Hurricane Katrina, the Southeast Asia tsunami and another earthquake in Pakistan? Each time, journalists asked the timeless question: What role did God play in these disasters?<\/p>\n
Last year, it was the schoolhouse massacre of five Amish girls in Bart Township, Pa. The stunning words of forgiveness offered by the families of the victims added yet another layer of drama to the story.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year there is going to be some great tragedy or disaster and that causes people to ask, \u2018Where was God?\u2019 These events may not seem like religion stories, but they almost always turn into religion stories because of the way people respond to them,\u201d said Richard N. Ostling, who retired last year after three decades on the religion beat, first with Time and then with the Associated Press.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis tells us something important \u2014 that it\u2019s hard to draw clean lines between what is religion news and what is not. \u2026 Religious faith is part of how people think and how they live. This affects all kinds of\u00a0things.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is true in Iran and in Israel. It\u2019s true on Sunday mornings in American suburbs and during riots in the suburbs of France. It\u2019s true on the border between India and Pakistan and numerous other fault lines around the world.<\/p>\n
Religion is a factor when people go to worship or when they decline to do so. For many, faith plays a role when they vote and when they volunteer to help others. Sadly, religion often plays a pivotal role when people go to war.<\/p>\n
Thus, noted Ostling, events on this beat often seem to go in circles, with certain themes and conflicts appearing year after year, world without end \u2014 amen.<\/p>\n
This is frustrating for editors, who struggle to understand why religious believers \u201ckeep getting so upset about what seem to be the same old stories,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For example, mainline Protestants have been fighting for decades over hot-button issues linked to ancient doctrines about marriage, gender and sex. More often than not, this leads to headlines about another round of changes in the U.S. Episcopal Church. One of the major stories of 2006 was the election of the Rt. Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori \u2014 an articulate feminist from the tiny Diocese of Nevada \u2014 as the denomination\u2019s first female presiding bishop.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was an important story,\u201d noted Ostling. \u201cBut was there anything all that surprising about it? Not really.\u201d Meanwhile, the bigger story \u2014 a chain reaction among parishes leaving the denomination \u2014 is \u201cprobably harder to cover because it is spread all over the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The fall of the Rev. Ted Haggard as president of the National Association of Evangelicals was a big story in 2006, but the typical news year always includes at least one sexy scandal of this kind.<\/p>\n
The list goes on. Every election year will include a wave of reports about the degree to which religious issues did or did not drive Republicans, and increasingly Democrats, to the polls.<\/p>\n
There are annual stories that pit science against religion and Hollywood against people in pews. Can journalists separate politics and faith in the Middle East? Are clashes between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq about religious faith, political power or some combination of the two? What will the pope say that upsets people this year? Which church-state case split the U.S. Supreme Court this time around?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is that it\u2019s hard to know if any one event in this stream of events is the definitive one, the truly landmark event,\u201d said Ostling. \u201cAt some point, things change and they stay changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
But journalists have to be patient, he said, because \u201cpeople are looking for answers to the big questions and they don\u2019t change what they believe overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Journalists may not know the precise meaning of the word \u201ctheodicy,\u201d but, year after year, they know a good \u201ctheodicy\u201d story when they see one. The American Heritage Dictionary defines this term as a \u201cvindication of God\u2019s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil.\u201d Wikipedia calls it a \u201cbranch of theology […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[168,1537,487,555,599,720,859],"class_list":["post-1419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-catholicism","tag-islam","tag-journalism","tag-middle-east","tag-newspapers","tag-religion-news","tag-theodicy"],"yoast_head":"\n