NYTs on atheists at holidays: Fox Butterfield, is that you?
There is such a thing as “low-hanging fruit” in life, and, it turns out, even in journalism. I am, therefore, a tad grateful to The New York Times for this easy-to-pick story about atheists who happen...
View ArticleLATimes: ‘Congregationalist’ Obama quotes Pope Francis
This is what passes for news in Washington these days: an immensely famous politician is having a speech prepared and instructs their speechwriters to quote another immensely famous person, because...
View ArticleNYT: The Obamas and Christmas (no church)
Christmas comes but once a year, the old saying goes. It’s a federal holiday as well as a religious observance, so it’s understandable that any president of the United States, regardless of faith,...
View ArticleOklahoma news: A Christmas ‘miracle’ via the local atheists
News stories blending the miraculous with Christmas aren’t difficult to find: families reunited, poor children receiving presents, the homeless fed. A common denominator, though, is usually a...
View ArticleNPR stumbles on GOP and Darwinian orthodoxy
Here’s a shocker, but not really. More Democrats than Republicans believe in evolution, or so says a survey from the Pew Research Center. Overall, Pew says: …six-in-ten Americans (60%) say that ‘humans...
View ArticleDaily Mail: Welby ‘casts out sin’ in new baptismal rite — not
In my opinion, looking to London’s Daily Mail for religion news coverage is rather like looking to People magazine for peer-reviewed medical studies. Once in a great while there might just be a People...
View ArticleNYTimes mostly ‘gets it’ on German schools and Islam
A few days ago, George Conger took to this space to “bury“ The New York Times for suddenly noticing the rise of Calvinism in unlikely Protestant venues, such as (Southern) Baptist churches. Today, I’d...
View ArticleUK journo’s ‘General’ Salvation Army confusion
London’s Telegraph newspaper generally does a serviceable job when reporting on religion, but a recent commentary news article contrasting the beliefs of The Salvation Army (they prefer the article...
View ArticleNYTimes late to the story on ‘Women at the Pulpit’
Proving that when there isn’t really news, one can perhaps manufacture some, The New York Times is, once again, late to the story on a topic of religious significance. When last GetReligion examined...
View ArticleLATimes pours out its love for the ‘spiritual’ Williamson
A positive news story about a political newcomer isn’t unusual. Newspapers and television outlets do these sorts of things regularly, and for all sorts of reasons. So on one level, it’s not all that...
View ArticleTime magazine claims that Bible-ness is next to Godliness
An old Salvation Army musical production — the kind of church entertainment often aimed at youngsters and teen-agers — had a catchy little chorus about that Christian group’s fabled “slum sisters” of...
View ArticleRolling Stone thinks it
For reasons probably more associated with my age than anything else, the old Dr. Hook song, “(On the) Cover of the Rolling Stone,” which equated placement on the front of rock’s top magazine with true...
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