Get Religion is a national and global journalism site focusing on how the mainstream press covers religion news in politics, entertainment, business and sports.
You may have heard that the son of a major Hamas leader announced that he is Christian. But if your curiosity was piqued as to why he converted, read Haaretz reporter Avi Issacharoff’s story about Masab Yousuf.
You don’t read this everyday. Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley writes that an influential Christian minister in Detroit is calling on the city’s embattled mayor to resign. Her story explains why the Rev. Edgar Vann joined a growing list of pastors to urge Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to step down.
John M. Broder of The New York Times wrote that Barack Obama’s campaign is likely to give a speaking slot at the Democratic convention later this month to Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, Jr., whose late father was famously denied the privilege:
I was in high school 20 years ago. It was an age of great pop music, mullets, and impending U.S. victory in the Cold War. If that sounds like a long time ago, it was.
Every serious student of recent American history and religion knows Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote about racial segregation and Christian churches. But few surely know the ways in which little has changed from King’s day. They would do well to read a CNN article on the subject.Reporter John Blake’s story was one of unusual power and honesty. Rare is the mainstream newspaper article that tells uncomfortable truths about both black and white Christians. This is one of those stories. Consider Blake’s lede:
As I wrote a few months ago, I appreciate any serious newspaper profile of the local Catholic bishop or cardinal. Not to bash my hometown press unnecessarily, but I don’t remember the Bay Area media in the 1980s or ’90s ever doing so. And this in a region where not too long ago, the San Francisco bishop could name the city’s police chief or captain of the fire department.
I am remiss in not writing about coverage of the 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae, the papal encyclical that upheld the Roman Catholic Church’s prohibition against artificial birth control and contraception.
Two major newspapers published front-page stories yesterday about a proposed Bush Administration rule that would seek to protect health-care workers to not provide abortions, or contraceptive devices they regard as tantamount to abortion. The proposal would deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan, or other entity that does not give employees a right to refuse to participate on conscience grounds.
I know Turkey is a secular state. As a reader of books about the Middle East (such as this fine one) and as someone who got a degree in political science, I have heard all about Kemal Ataturk and the secular founding of the country. But I had never appreciated how secular Turkey was until I read reporter Laura King’s story in The Los Angeles Times.
