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That’s the provocative headline that accompanies a story I’ve been pondering ever since Amy Welborn brought it to our attention. The New York Times Sunday magazine piece runs about 7,000 words and it’s completely riveting. You can — and should — read it here.
Of all the interesting things to consider as a media critic, the most important is probably story choice. We frequently look at individual stories and praise them or criticize them or point out interesting errors or omissions. But such an approach misses that big initial question of how story selection colors our understanding of the world more than anything else.
It’s always hard to see people leave the Godbeat, even while you wish them well. Dan Gilgoff has been a religion news writer for as long as I’ve been here at GetReligion and his most recent work — at CNN’s Belief Blog — has probably been my favorite.
A journalist I greatly admire shared this video, mentioning it was from the New York Times. It immediately struck me as a riveting piece of journalism with a not-too-small religion angle.
Now that my husband and I hope to bring more children into our family through adoption, we’ve entered into a complex and incredibly bureaucratic and confusing world. We’ve made new friends, too, who have helped us through the process. Some of them have adopted internationally. In fact, most of the other adoptive families we’ve met have adopted internationally.
I am blessed to be a member of an absolutely wonderful congregation. It’s a healthy mix of people who work together to keep the mission of our congregation going and thriving. Our regular focus on the Divine Service inspires all of our mission work, including a parish school and community programs.
I imagine I’m not alone in still struggling with the Newtown massacre. Even after witnessing media deluge, the tangential political grandstanding, the unique evil of killing 1st graders is very difficult for me to think about.
George just posted about an old story being rehashed for Christmas, which reminded me that the regular attempts to debunk Christianity around its holy days has become my favorite tradition. What would Christmas and Easter be like without a semi-blasphemous newsweekly magazine cover questioning some central tenet of the religion?
I hope all of our readers who celebrate Christmas are having a blessed one. As I prepared for my church’s Lessons and Carols service on Christmas Eve (where the youngest Hemingway made her choir debut), my thoughts turned to Christians elsewhere in the world where Christmas is not just a time to celebrate God made flesh but also a time to fear bombings or violence. This Reuters piece headlined “Christmas brings fear of church bombs in Nigeria” begins:
