Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
In a recent obituary for Russell S. Doughten Jr., an âIowa filmmaker who made post-rapture evangelical movie series,â the Associated Press attempts to explain the evangelical view on the End Times:
Earlier this month I called a story about a church planter in Brooklyn the worst religion story of the year. I don’t like to write harsh critiques (really, I don’t) but it’s frustrating to have an interesting story mangled by shoddy reporting. While reading that terrible Daily News piece I wondered, “What could this article have done right?â
Every week, in churches around the world, Christians engage in a peculiar practice in which they confront and correct fellow believers on a range of issues, which are often lumped into a general category called âsins.â The process for this practice was first outlined by a popular religious leader named Jesus and recorded in a book known as the Gospel of Matthew:
You’ve probably heard of some variation of the Slow Movement, a trend which advocates a cultural shift toward slowing down life’s pace. There are subcultures devoted to Slow Food, Slow Gardening, Slow Travel — even Slow Church. But what we really need, especially in religion reporting, is Slow News.
As a famous religious figure once said, âAsk and you shall receive.â Sometimes even we media critics get what we ask for. Last month I asked for more â and deeper â coverage of hipster churches, and then this week veteran Godbeat reporter Michelle Boorstein fulfills my request (at least partially).
Having grown up in a large Catholic family that volunteered at her church, a former tech executive leaves her job at a large philanthropic foundation to take a job at a small charity founded by a Jesuit priest and named after a Biblical character.
“Both Roman Catholic and Evangelical Protestant media have for years been drawing public attention to the persecution of Christians in many countries,” says the renowned sociologist of religion, Peter Berger. “Secular media have been less attentive; some have ascribed this to an anti-Christian bias; I rather doubt thisâmore likely it comes from the fact that many otherwise well-informed journalists are less informed on religious matters.”
In one of the most famous Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Silver Blaze, the clue that led to identifying the criminal was a dog that didn’t bark.
While struggling to find words to adequately describe the worst religion article of the year, I was reminded of a brilliant exchange in an otherwise atrocious movie, Billy Madison.
