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The Daily Mail loves its crazy American stories — articles that show the quirky (I’m being polite) or bizarre (a little more true to life) aspects of American culture — or the lack there of. Today’s installment is entitled: “Families shocked to find ‘hate mail’ claiming their Christmas lights honour ‘Pagan Sun-God.”
The Village Voice is getting a bit of notice for a recent feature going after Republican New York City Councilman Dan Halloran. That the Village Voice might take issue with a Republican city councilman is not surprising. But one of its angles of attacks is. To see what I mean, let’s begin with the headline:
An extremely important religious liberty case is being argued in front of the Supreme Court today. I have been meaning to cover the case for months, but it kept falling into the deeper recesses of my guilt file. The case involves the firing of a Lutheran school teacher from a Lutheran school. The particulars of the case are unique and the story of the teacher who was fired is compelling. But because of the way the lower courts have ruled and because of the possible outcomes of a SCOTUS decision, today is just huge.
Once upon a time there was this strange religious phenomenon in American life — especially in mass media — that was known as the New Age Movement.
An Arizona organization that went by the name Phoenix Goddess Temple was raided last week. The group claims it provides religious services while the Maricopa County attorney says those services were sexual and were traded for money. Readers were not pleased with how this was presented in various media reports.
You don’t need to turn to the majors for examples of fine religion reporting. There are talented folk among the editors and writers in America’s small town newspapers doing great work, and Jason Pitzl-Waters, who blogs at The Wild Hunt, has drawn my attention to one such story.
Fears of a gun-toting death cult overrunning the United States drives Middle Americaâs fear of illegal immigration from Mexico.
We sometimes reference our guilt files and my guilt file is reaching epic levels so I’m going to try to unload three recent stories into one post. I’m grouping them together under what I’ll call The Wild Hunt banner — they’re all stories that would or could be covered over at that blog that deals with Pagan and Heathen communities. The Wild Hunt, for what it’s worth, is now appearing over at Patheos so it’s interesting to see how Patheos is landing various bloggers across the religious spectrum.
Right up front, let me note that voodoo simply has to be one of the most confusing, complex and loaded subjects in the wide, wide, wide world of religion news.
