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I don’t know what to add to this Associated Press story (hat tip to Rod FOTB Dreher), except to say that we Baby Boomers are not going to go into middle age and beyond quietly. Is this a Godbeat story? Trends in Baby Boomer entertainment rituals? The liturgy of the media?
The Dallas Morning News has a fun book-related feature up today called “Grace Lands: Professor hits the road in search of religious kitsch, and finds true faith along the way.” The book is called Roadside Religion and it’s about a mainline Protestant attempting to dissect the strange people who live in strange lands dominated by traditional forms of faith, which means that, in many ways, it has the exact same journalistic point of view as the entire Dallas Morning News, especially its nationally known religion section.
I think it is safe to say that this story represents the end of the Romanian convent-from-hell episode. Bishop Corneliu Barladeanu stepped up and did what bishops are supposed to do — protect the faith. You know things are totally out of control when the nuns start attacking a bishop, attacking as in physical assault. Here are a few more interesting details from a wire update:
This is a Chicago Tribune story, but I just ran into it while reading through the drifts of South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspapers that collected while I was in Washington, D.C. The tradition of burning candles is, of course, very ancient. Try to find a reference to public ritual in the Bible that does not involve this tradition (and incense).
Last Sunday’s clown Eucharist at the Episcopal Church’s powerhouse congregation of Trinity Wall Street has miraculously eluded any coverage in The New York Times, though it picked up a squib in the Daily News. That paper’s headline made the inevitable reference to Judy Collins’ hit song: “Rev. sends in clowns to teach a lesson” (to which I feel compelled to add, “Don’t bother [maudlin pause] they’re here.”
It’s the sort of glurge one expects in the Inspirational category of sympathy cards at the chain grocery story: the human soul is in Heaven, watching our every movement with newly acquired supernatural powers. Except in this case the body is not dead yet:
When the Rev. George Conger is on an Anglican story, it’s hard to top his firsthand reporting for thoroughness, relevant details and good humor.
Rob Moll of Christianity Today Online’s Weblog has pointed out the imbalance of Newsweek‘s cover story on the Nativity, and GetReligion has previously identified Jon Meacham’s frequent practice of warning against the dangers of “certainty” and “literalism” in stories involving historic Christian dogma.
