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I’m always amazed when I read a piece of journalism that takes what I call the “anthropological approach” to some weird religious group. It seems particularly odd when the group in question is Christians in America. Usually it’s evangelical Christians who get this special treatment.
For one angle in the brouhaha surrounding Rick Warren’s slated Inauguration prayer, blogs did most of the heavy lifting. Thanks to Dan Gilgoff of U.S. News & World Report, Christina Hoag of The Associated Press and Alex Koppelman of Salon for mentioning, in varying levels of detail, that Warren and rock singer Melissa Etheridge met each other at an event sponsored by the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Singer Alexandra Burke recently won top honors on Britain’s X Factor TV talent competition, and she drove Leonard Cohen’s song “Hallelujah” to the top of the pop charts. Ruth Gledhill of The Times asked her colleague Alan Franks to reflect on Cohen’s spiritual life.
The coverage of the Jonestown massacre made a strong impression on me, since I was a young journalist who wanted to become a religion-beat reporter.
Matters of the spirit were not among Studs Terkel’s higher priorities as a left-wing agnostic writer. Writing on Friday afternoon, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Dave Hoekstra noted that Terkel died in the same week that gospel singer Mahalia Jackson was born, and described their “spiritual connection”:
Songwriter Graham Kendrick has managed to land in the book 50 People Who Buggered-Up Britain by Quentin Letts, a parliamentary sketch writer for the Daily Mail.
More than any other story in this campaign cycle, Democratic outreach to evangelical Christians has some serious staying power. We have been told over and over that Democrats have ramped up their outreach to religious voters and we’ve been told all about every part of that effort.
At first glance, there really isn’t much going on in this little Detroit News metro feature entitled “Pastor believes prayer can save city.”
Sometimes I joke that mainstream media cheerleads so much for same-sex marriage that they seem to be trying to convince readers and viewers that same-sex marriage is better than traditional marriage.
