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A friend who called my attention to Mark Lilla’s New York Times essay (about leaving behind his faith) raised this question: Will the Times ever publish a similar essay about a person who comes to faith?
The October issue of The Atlantic offers another rich meal of religion references, especially in Joshua Green’s “Roy and His Rock,” an 8,200-word essay on Judge Roy Moore and his traveling granite monument of the Ten Commandments. The Atlantic‘s website limits access to the full article, but I’ll quote some favorite passages here.
I’m not sure these days whether to be thankful for The New Yorker‘s frequent interest in the Godbeat or to be frustrated that it posts so few religion stories to its website. Fair enough, the web content for the September 12 issue focuses heavily on Hurricane Katrina’s devastating effect on New Orleans. When your archives include a 28,000-word essay by John McPhee on efforts to control Mississippi River flooding, you’re wise to raid the archives.
Maybe it’s because I’ve written more for magazines than for newspapers since the late 1980s, but I often find newsweeklies more helpful than other media for making sense of broad-sweep stories, such as Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans.
The New Yorker has published another lengthy feature story — this time about an entrepreneurial “cemeterian” in California named Tyler Cassity — that’s available only in print (the Aug. 29 issue). Tad Friend, author of the 12-page article, discusses it in this online Q&A.
The August 29 New Yorker includes a six-page profile of über-blogger Hugh Hewitt, calling him the “Most Famous Conservative Journalist Whom Liberals Have Never Heard Of.” A color illustration by Eric Palma depicts Hewitt as a smirking colossus, sitting atop a half-black, half-white globe and doing his radio show while fingering his laptop.
Newsweek‘s latest cover package is a religion writer’s dream — 16 pages of prime editorial space to discuss American religions in their ever-expanding diversity and custom-tailored worldviews.
Peter J. Boyer of The New Yorker has become an indispensable reporter on the Godbeat, and his recent story on Billy and Franklin Graham is another solid achievement. (The article, from the Aug. 22 issue, is not available online, but the magazine atones for that by offering an engaging slideshow of black-and-white photos by Mary Ellen Mark, along with an audio track by Boyer.)
Talk about being in the right place at the right time: At 4:40 p.m. Monday, Media Matters for America posted this item about Pat Robertson’s latest shoot-from-the-hip remarks on The 700 Club.
