Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
Three of the major festivals of the church year are Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. In America, we celebrate Christmas with abandon, Easter with a minor uptick in chocolate sales, and Pentecost hardly at all.
So, what’s the story about religious voters in the 2008 election? Well, it depends on who you’re talking to.
Compared to the primary election, the subject of the religion and faith of Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama’s has largely been absent from the pages of Midwestern newspapers and magazines. Some of this can be justified by the fact that the Midwest is reeling in an economic slump that is seeing people threatened with the loss of their jobs and homes and the collapse of the auto industry and other manufacturing industries that make up a substantial portion of the region’s economy. People want to hear the candidates talk about their economic plans more than their spiritual backgrounds.
The Detroit News and Baltimore Sun recently produced two shockingly non-news worthy articles about the role or religion in this 2008 presidential election.
Sometimes a kind woman does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Jessica Myers of The Dallas Morning News reports:
For some reason, this collection of stories currently running on the Washington Post‘s religion page remind me of that old saw, I believe coined by Tom Lehrer, about how the New York Times would cover the end of the world: “World Ends: Women, Minorities Hardest Hit.”
Last week we looked at veteran Time religion writer David Van Biema‘s fun piece “Is It OK to Pray for Your 401(k)? A Theological Primer.” We’ve been calling for good religion coverage, when possible, of the current economic situation. Van Biema followed up that great piece with a really fun and interesting look at how different religions understand appropriate investment.
Could the Sunday article in The Washington Post‘s Style section on families turning from money to faith have been told without mentioning religion at all?
