I read the preacher’s words once — and then again — and tried to make sense of them.
In a Florida TV station’s report on a church promoting the COVID-19 vaccines, minister Charlie McClendon was quoted as saying, “Each week I emphasize it from the pool pit just before I preach.”
The pool pit?
I’ve covered religion for two-plus decades, but I hadn’t come across that term. Strange.
Later, my eyes popped wide open in the middle of the night.
Suddenly, it hit me.
“Pulpit.”
I burst into laughter, much to the chagrin of my sleeping wife.
After I posted on Twitter about the mistake, reporter Gretchen Kernbach offered a gracious mea culpa and corrected the wording.
Even before her tweet, I made clear — amid humorous responses and more serious calls for better religious literacy in journalism — that I wasn’t casting stones. In 30 years of news reporting, I’ve made plenty of doozy mistakes myself.
I just thought this particular one was funny. If you don’t believe me, feel free to ask my wife.
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. For U.S. teen Buddhist lama, it’s faith, school, football: Associated Press religion writer Luis Andres Henao tells the fascinating story of Jalue Dorje, a 14-year-old Minnesota boy who grew up loving loving football, Pokémon and rap music.
“Yet a few years from now, he’s expecting to say goodbye to his family and homeland and join a monastery in the foothills of the Himalayas — from an early age, he was recognized by the Dalai Lama and other Tibetan Buddhist leaders as a reincarnated lama,” Henao explains.
This multimedia package, featuring a video and photos by AP global religion team member Jessie Wardarski, is exceptional.
2. Nine years, 782,000 words later, South Carolina woman completes handwritten Bible: Christianity Today’s Adam MacInnis profiles Caroline Campbell, a 28-year-old Christian with Down syndrome who copied the entire Bible by hand.
“She started in Genesis and worked her way through Revelation, writing down all 782,815 words from her 1973 New American Standard Bible,” MacInnis notes.
The world needs more stories like this, full of hope and inspiration.
CONTINUE READING: “What's The Difference Between A 'Pool Pit' And A Pulpit? Twitter Has The Answers,” by Bobby Ross, Jr., at Religion Unplugged.