HARTFORD, Conn. -- If you've been reading
here on the blog over the last week or so, you know I'm in New England
seeing some family members and now attending this weekend's annual
conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in Hartford. (You can follow the society's conference, which began Yesterday, at the site I've given you here.)
But
as I like to do when I'm on the road and don't have time for my regular
daily postings, I want to give you some resources to keep up on daily
news about religion.
Start, of course, with the work my friends at Religion News Service do. For that, click here.
Another recommended option is Beliefnet.com, and you can find that here.
"The Revealer: A daily review of religion & media" can be reached by clicking here. The fact that "The Revealer" includes a link to my blog just shows how discerning its operators are, don't you think?
Another great source for what's happening in the field of religion is Real Clear Religion, which you can reach by clicking here.
As I have time I'll try to add some things here, but it may not be until July 2 that I'm back to my regular daily schedule.
* * *
While I'm on the road for awhile the chances are that I won't be posting a second item here each day as I usually do.
HARTFORD, Conn. -- If you've been reading here on the blog over the last week or so, you know I'm in New England seeing some family members and now attending this weekend's annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in Hartford. (You can follow the society's conference, which formally begins today, at the site I've given you here. And the hashtag to look for on Twitter is #NSNCgroup or, even better, #NSNC13.)
But as I like to do when I'm on the road and don't have time for my regular daily postings, I want to give you some resources to keep up on daily news about religion.
Start, of course, with the work my friends at Religion News Service do. For that, click here.
Another recommended option is Beliefnet.com, and you can find that here.
"The Revealer: A daily review of religion & media" can be reached by clicking here. The fact that "The Revealer" includes a link to my blog just shows how discerning its operators are, don't you think?
Another great source for what's happening in the field of religion is Real Clear Religion, which you can reach by clicking here.
As I have time I'll try to add some things here, but it may not be until July 2 that I'm back to my regular daily schedule.
* * *
While I'm on the road for awhile the chances are that I won't be posting a second item here each day as I usually do.
HARTFORD, Conn. -- If you've been reading here on the blog over the last week or so, you know I'm in New England seeing some family members and now attending this weekend's annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in Hartford. ( Starting tonight or in the morning you can follow the society's conference at the site I've given you here. And the hashtag to look for on Twitter is #NSNCgroup.)
But as I like to do when I'm on the road and don't have time for my regular daily postings, I want to give you some resources to keep up on daily news about religion.
Start, of course, with the work my friends at Religion News Service do. For that, click here.
Another recommended option is Beliefnet.com, and you can find that here.
"The Revealer: A daily review of religion & media" can be reached by clicking here. The fact that "The Revealer" includes a link to my blog just shows how discerning its operators are, don't you think?
Another great source for what's happening in the field of religion is Real Clear Religion, which you can reach by clicking here.
As I have time I'll try to add some things here, but it may not be until July 2 that I'm back to my regular daily schedule.
* * *
While I'm on the road for awhile the chances are that I won't be posting a second item here each day as I usually do.
* * *
P.S.: When I return next week I plan to write about what, if anything, this week's U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on gay marriage means for religion.
HARWICH, MASS. -- If you've been reading here on the blog over the last week or so, you know I'm in New England seeing some family members and about to attend this weekend's annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in Hartford.
But as I like to do when I'm on the road and don't have time for my regular daily postings, I want to give you some resources to keep up on daily news about religion.
Start, of course, with the work my friends at Religion News Service do. For that, click here.
Another recommended option is Beliefnet.com, and you can find that here.
"The Revealer: A daily review of religion & media" can be reached by clicking here. The fact that "The Revealer" includes a link to my blog just shows how discerning its operators are, don't you think?
Another great source for what's happening in the field of religion is Real Clear Religion, which you can reach by clicking here.
As I have time I'll try to add some things here, but it may not be until July 2 that I'm back to my regular daily schedule.
* * *
While I'm on the road for awhile the chances are that I won't be posting a second item here each day as I usually do.
* * *
P.S.: Some time this morning my latest NationalCatholicReporter column is scheduled to post online. When it does you can find it at http://ncronline.org/blogs/small-c-catholic. And, my latest PresbyterianOutlook column just posted at http://pres-outlook.com/insights-opinions.html.
NORTH SPRINGFIELD, Vt. -- If you've been reading here on the blog over the last week or so, you know I'm in New England seeing some family members and about to attend this weekend's annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in Hartford.
But as I like to do when I'm on the road and don't have time for my regular daily postings, I want to give you some resources to keep up on daily news about religion.
Start, of course, with the work my friends at Religion News Service do. For that, click here.
Another recommended option is Beliefnet.com, and you can find that here.
"The Revealer: A daily review of religion & media" can be reached by clicking here. The fact that "The Revealer" includes a link to my blog just shows how discerning its operators are, don't you think?
Another great source for what's happening in the field of religion is Real Clear Religion, which you can reach by clicking here.
As I have time I'll try to add some things here, but it may not be until July 2 that I'm back to my regular daily schedule.
* * *
While I'm on the road for awhile the chances are that I won't be posting a second item here each day as I usually do.
NORTH SPRINGFIELD, Vt. -- For 15 or 20 years now I've heard people describe themselves as "spiritual but not religious."
I've come to the conclusion that the distinction means almost nothing, even to the people who use it. That's because it's so difficult to come up with any widely accepted definition of what it means to be spiritual, much less what it means to be religious.
In the end, it's mostly fuzzy thinking. Still, it doesn't keep academics from doing studies about this matter.
For instance, in a new study, Baylor University researchers have concluded that, as the press release about the study says, "young adults who deem themselves 'spiritual
but not religious' are more likely to commit property crimes -- and to a
lesser extent, violent ones -- than those who identify themselves as
either 'religious and spiritual' or 'religious but not spiritual.'"
Well, OK, then.
One of the researchers said this of their findings: "Calling oneself 'spiritual but not
religious' turned out to more of an antisocial characteristic, unlike
identifying oneself as religious."
All of this may be meaningful and insightful and may even help law enforcement agencies reduce crime, but I'm sort of mystified by how. Does being "spiritual" really cause one to be a criminal more often than being "religious"?
I just can't get my head around these loosey-goosey concepts and am tempted to wait for the movie, which I don't expect to see here in Vermont where I'm spending some time with family before heading to Hartford for the annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. You can follow the goings-on there on that website starting Thursday evening or Friday morning.
* * *
While I'm on the road the chances that I'll add a second item to the blog each day, as I usually do, are pretty slim.
NORTH HERO, Vt. -- In the current issue of Harper's magazine, contributing editor Thomas Frank writes about my old boss. Frank's "Easy Chair" column talks about USA Today founder Al Neuharth (pictured here), along with Margaret Thatcher and conservative political activist Howard Phillips, all three of whom died in April. (The link I've given you to Frank's piece will give you just the start of it. To read it all online you have to be a print subscriber. It's in the July print issue.)
Neuharth was publisher of the Rochester, N.Y., Gannett newspapers when I worked there for the Times-Union from 1967 to the middle of 1970. (Rochester is about half a day's drive from my brother-in-law's place here on Lake Champlain.)
Neuharth did some good things as a newspaper man. Despite what Frank calls his "banality and brazen self-assertion," Frank gives him credit because "somewhere in his heart, this guy actually cared about journalism."
Well, yes and no.
Let me tell you a story about Neuharth and ethics. I'll let you draw your own conclusion.
The Times-Union staff was pretty young when I was there. Lots of us were in our 20s. And we were a restless group when it came to putting up with journalistic mediocrity, which we sensed was marrow-deep at Gannett, despite several obvious exceptions.
So one night a bunch of us asked Neuharth if he'd meet with us off campus to let us talk with him informally about what we thought was wrong and what it would take to start producing a really good newspaper. Sure, we were arrogant, but our hearts were in the right place.
To his credit, he agreed to join us. So one evening lots of folks crowded into the one-bedroom apartment my wife and I occupied on Park Avenue a block or two from the George Eastman house. We sort of let Al have it, complaining about lack of resources to cover the news, about an emphasis on fluff versus substance and on and on.
He listened and engaged us. A bit after 10 p.m. things were winding down but hadn't quite hit the end when someone announced that we had run out of beer. I guess we were bad planners.
Al immediately asked me to accompany him a block and a half to a convenience store called the Food Tree so we could get more beer.
As we got up to the counter to pay (yes, Al paid), the first edition of the morning Gannett paper, The Democrat & Chronicle, arrived at the store and got tossed in a stack near the cash register.
Al grabbed half a dozen or more copies of them, put them on top of the beer and told the cashier that he, Al, was new in the neighborhood and would need this many D&Cs every night, so he should increase his newspaper order to cover that.
I was dumbfounded. Not only was it a lie, it was a stupid, short-term-gain lie that would benefit the Gannett company for no more than 24 hours before it would become obvious to the store operators that it was a lie. And then what would they think?
I determined that night that I couldn't work long-term for someone with ethics like that, and by the summer of 1970 I had accepted a job at The Kansas City Star.
For that and for other reasons, I never had much respect for Neuharth. And since then I've been extra aware that the ethical values we live out in public do not go unnoticed.
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While I'm on the road for awhile the chances are that I won't be posting a second item here each day as I usually do.
NORTH SPRINGFIELD, Vt. -- Just a few weeks ago I was checking in here on the blog from the other side of the continent -- British Columbia, north of Vancouver.
I've been really blessed to be able to travel as much as I have in my life (47 states, about 35 countries), and on this trip I'm with my bride seeing her Vermont family members and then we're heading to Cape Cod to see one of my sisters and to Hartford, Conn., for the annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists in less than a week. (Keep track of that columnists' website for our June 27-30 conference and you'll be able to follow what goes on there, including our awarding a lifetime achievement award to Dave Barry.)
As we travel, my wife and I take photos that we turn into blank greeting cards. As people of faith, we try to see the beauty of God's creation and to capture at least a hint of that beauty in our photos.
Neither of us is a professional photographer, but I've learned that we both have a pretty good eye for what is captivating and what displays that which author Annie Dillard calls the creator's "pizzazz."
So I wanted to give you a few pictures today of what we've seen since last November, when we spent a few days in southwest Missouri. In February we were in Colorado for a few days. Then we went to the Pacific Northwest in late May. And now we're in New England.
The top photo here was shot at Big Cedar Lodge in southwest Missouri. The photo on the left is from Colorado, near Keystone. The smaller photo on the right I took at Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C. And I took the photo at the bottom at Lions Bay, B.C., about 20 minutes north of Vancouver.
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While I'm on the road for awhile the chances are that I won't be posting a second item here each day as I usually do.
NORTH SPRINGFIELD, Vt. -- My first grandchild, Olivia, was born 11 years ago today in suburban Kansas City. I had asked my daughter not to give birth until I returned from a post-9/11 trip to the Middle East to write about Islam, but apparently Olivia didn't get the message.
I first learned about the birth in an e-mail that I found on a computer in the business center of my hotel in Cairo, Egypt.
Eleven years later Olivia is a fabulous grade-school student, an excellent dancer, a trumpet player and a singer whose voice is simply astonishing.
Although I was able to attend her dance recital this past Saturday evening, I missed her year-end concert at school at which she sang. My wife managed to capture Olivia on video to let me hear her and I could hardly believe a child could sing so angelically.
What does any of this have to do with faith, religion or ethics? Well, I've been thinking about the wisdom of Psalm 90, which tells us, in the old King James Version, that "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away."
I'm past threescore and working on the next 10, and in the way the world works one of my tasks is to be grandfather and to encourage Olivia and my other grandchildren to love life, do their best and be grateful for their many opportunities to live life abundantly and joyfully.
So high-fives to grandchildren today, and especially to Olivia. And, sweetheart, I'm sorry I'm on the road again for your birthday, but you knew when you entered the world that you had a grandpa who tends to wander God's big world.
(The photo here today shows Olivia and me doing our Halloween scary faces several years ago.)
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While I'm on the road for awhile the chances are that I won't be posting a second item here each day as I usually do.
In an old joke, a man says he's in an interfaith marriage.
"Really?" asks the person to whom he says this.
"Yes," he says. "I'm a Methodist and she's Satan."
Well, I didn't say it was a good or funny joke, just old. But it brings me to share with you one of religion scholar Martin E. Marty's recent "Sightings" columns in which he talks about some of the ramifications and complications of interfaith marriages.
And he raises the question others have raised: Is the growing trend toward interfaith marriages a welcome sign of tolerance or a dangerous dilution of faith itself?
I think the answer is yes.
Which is to say: Interfaith marriages can provide rich ground that allows both spouses to learn from the other's faith tradition and to grow, thereby, into a deeper commitment to their own tradition. That's generally how interfaith dialogue works and there's no reason it can't work that way in interfaith marriages.
Indeed, I have seen it work just that way in some of the interfaith marriages with which I'm familiar.
But there also are cautions about the practice that should be taken into account. For instance, it's possible that both spouses will drift toward no commitment at all just to avoid any conflict about faith within the marriage, especially when children are involved. And it's possible that both spouses will become increasingly rigid and ideological about faith so that, in effect, they break up the marriage and view the other spouse as eternally damned.
Both of those dangers grow exponentially if there has been no thorough discussion of matters of faith prior to the wedding. Good pre-marital counseling is always important, but especially when crossing some untraditional boundaries.
Finally, each major world religion has so many branches and divisions within it that sometimes what amounts to an interfaith marriage can happen between two Christians, two Jews, two Muslims or two Buddhists. In such cases you don't need two people as different as a Methodist and Satan.
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AN UNSURPRISING STUDY ON GAYS AND RELIGION
A new study shows that the LGBT community is less religious than the population in general and that almost one-third of them have felt unwelcome in a house of worship. No shock. You tell people that they're damned sinners and they're not likely to feel very loved. For my essay on what the Bible really says about homosexuality, look under the "Check this out" headline on the right side of this page.
Posted with Blogsy