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rug

(82,333 posts)
Sun May 5, 2013, 01:34 PM May 2013

VIEWPOINT: The American Media Needs To Take A Theology Class (Or Three)

By Jack Jenkins, Guest Blogger on May 4, 2013 at 10:35 am

There’s no way around it: Religion plays an especially powerful role in American public life. More than 90 percent of Americans profess a belief in God, and one need only examine the recent religiously-infused national debates over religious liberty, access to contraception, and marriage equality to see how crucial religion is to millions of Americans.

Yet religion seems to be having an increasingly hard time getting a fair shake from another major player in American life: the media. The breadth and quality of religion reporting in the United States has atrophied in recent years, with once-robust religion sections now all but erased from the pages of the nation’s leading newspapers. Meanwhile, religion reporters have either been laid off or forced to re-shift their professional focus to covering religion “on the side.”

The result is a mainstream media sorely lacking in quality religion reporting, a fact that calls into question the press’ ability to paint an accurate picture of modern American life. In light of the recent confused coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and Islam, it’s worth reminding the press why they (we) should try harder to get religion right. So, in the spirit of modern journalism, I’ve put together five reasons why journalists need to get working on their religion coverage:

1. Failure to understand religion can lead to embarrassingly inaccurate stories. When Roman Catholic cardinals descended on the Vatican in March to cast their vote for the next pope, journalists were quick to solicit the opinion of Sister Simone Campbell, a Catholic nun who rose to fame last year for her public opposition to Rep. Paul Ryan’s federal budget proposal and her rousing speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention. But in midst of her interviews, Campbell was also repeatedly asked another question: Which papal candidate did she intend to vote for?

http://thinkprogress.org/media/2013/05/04/1951621/media-religion-coverage/?mobile=nc#

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Phillip McCleod

(1,837 posts)
1. i think a 'comparative religion' course would be better..
Sun May 5, 2013, 04:19 PM
May 2013

..as it would likely include the C&J student more likely to see the similarities and differences more clearly and provide more food for thought than 'theology'.. uck.

theology is, in a word, bullshit. first 'theo' has to *exist* before one may '-ology' it.

 

rug

(82,333 posts)
2. The comparison of organizations is not the same as a comparison of ideologies.
Sun May 5, 2013, 04:36 PM
May 2013

By the same token you may as well say philosophy is bullshit.

Even though monads do not exist it was worthwhile to examine the concept.

However, for journalism purposes, a comprehensive study of comparative religions is sufficient in most cases.

I think his point that the discussions are erroneous and shallow is well taken. The result is wildly wrong conclusions.

Silver Gaia

(4,514 posts)
8. Agreed.
Sun May 5, 2013, 04:52 PM
May 2013

The word "theology" indicates study of one's own religion, which is obviously not the same thing as an unbiased study of religion in general, which is the goal of a course in comparative religion. However, the author does, otherwise, make good points. His own misuse of the word "theology" tends to undermine his point (or perhaps, actually emphasizes it?) a bit, though.

muriel_volestrangler

(101,154 posts)
13. I disagree with the claim that there's anything wrong with the correction, though
Tue May 7, 2013, 04:10 AM
May 2013

The original was "Easter is the celebration of the resurrection into heaven of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life." The correction was "An earlier version of this article mischaracterized the Christian holiday of Easter. It is the celebration of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead, not his resurrection into heaven."

So we have "Easter is the celebration of the resurrection from the dead of Jesus, three days after he was crucified, the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life."

The guy in Real Clear Politics claims this only corrected 1 of three mistakes. But what he counts as a second mistake is when Ascension is celebrated. But the corrected version doesn't mention ascension at all, so it's fine. And he think calling the resurrection "the premise for the Christian belief in an everlasting life" is a mistake, since "many Christian scholars would quibble with the idea that everlasting life was an unfamiliar concept in Israel at the time Jesus preached there". But it doesn't call it "an unfamiliar concept" to some Jews (and, from what I've read, an afterlife was far from a universal concept in Judaism then). It talks about what Christians believe, and I'd counter his 2 OT references with 1 NT one (which trumps OT references) - 1 Corinthians 15:17-18:

"And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost."

I also think that reporters being unaware that some people with similar religious views to Akin think the same bullshit about rape (point #3) is not 'religious illiteracy', but unfamiliarity with the biological illiteracy of some arseholes who show they don't know enough to be able to take part in a rational debate about rape or abortion. You cannot expect reporters to know exactly what all sects get wrong, and, when covering what a politician has got wrong about biology, why on earth would you even think of checking with a seminary about what they claim? Did they check with everyone who taught him biology in school first? What's more, the seminary has denied they think the BS about the body 'shutting down' fertility after rape, so this looks even less like "religious illiteracy". The author seems to have issued a correction to his own mistake in the next sentence, by linking to the seminary's denial.

 

hrmjustin

(71,265 posts)
14. I agree the correction is not bad. I would have explained in more detail but it got better.
Tue May 7, 2013, 10:21 AM
May 2013

I don't take anything RCP religion section says to seriously.

The Pharisees and Sadducee's argued all the time about the eternal life question and it was no different during Jesus's lifetime.

 

skepticscott

(13,029 posts)
10. While not untrue
Sun May 5, 2013, 05:15 PM
May 2013

the problem of "reporters" being generally ignorant of the topics on which they write is by no means confined to religion. Economics, science, history, foreign affairs, education, to name but a few, are abysmally covered in all but the largest newspapers, and sometimes even there. The just as poorly informed public assumes that anyone with a byline who can string two coherent sentences together knows what they're talking about, but it just ain't so.

dimbear

(6,271 posts)
11. It's perfectly reasonable that Sister Campbell had a candidate she intended to vote for.
Sun May 5, 2013, 05:55 PM
May 2013

I intended to vote for rug, as I mentioned, but it's merely a side issue that I cannot vote, nor can Sister Campbell.

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