NBC: Pro-Life Super Bowl Ad is ‘Political,’ PETA Ad is Not
NBC won’t accept “issue advocacy” commercials for its Super Bowl broadcast on Sunday, February 1. Apparently, the network that “went green” for an entire week last fall, and that did an environmental stunt on a football show the year before, wants to stay away from politics. Or maybe just some politics. NBC has rejected an ad sponsored by the Catholic group Fidelis “after days of negotiation,”…
Lisa Miller's Dumb Question About Rick Warren's Prayer
While she pronounced his prayer as a "good job" for being generally non-offensive and inclusive-sounding, Newsweek's Lisa Miller -- who earlier this month suggested ditching inaugural prayers altogether -- was nagged by the "lingering question" that "remains" from the way evangelical pastor Rick Warren closed his inauguration ceremony invocation in the name of Jesus:Warren's conservative theology…
CBSSports.com Columnist Slams Worship of 'False Idol
CBSSports.com columnist Gregg Doyel has had it with all the hero worship, the idolatry, the 'canonization' of the guy: This one's going to hurt. It's going to hurt you, and it's going to hurt me..... It's directed at those who would beatify the man.... Because he's just a man. No, he's not referring to President-elect Obama but rather Tim Tebow, the University of Florida quarterback who led…
Newsweek's Lisa Miller on Religious Fundamentalists and the Inaugurati
Invoking the threat of "religious fundamentalists abroad" and tacitly comparing them to religious conservatives in the United States, Newsweek's Lisa Miller advises President-elect Obama to ditch the practice of having clergy offer prayers at the presidential inauguration:Our new president might use his Inauguration then to showcase the values that have made this country great: pluralism,…
USA Today's Faith & Reason 'Sticking a Fork in the Eye' of Religious C
USA Today's religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman apparently has little use for Christian ministers who believe the Bible's teachings on sexual ethics. Apparently already annoyed with evangelical pastor Rick Warren's stance on California's Proposition 8, Grossman took the California preacher to task for a letter offering use of his Saddleback Church to conservative Anglicans who have left the…
Christmas Dinner Causes Global Warming
First it's Christmas lights, now it's Christmas dinner...causing global warming.Yep. People who cook more than their guests will eat and throw the food away are destroying the planet.I'm not kidding.ABCNews.com in Australia reported the following absurdity on Christmas Eve:
What Time of Year Is It? (Year 4, Part
In 2005, I sensed that journalists in general prefer to call this time of the year in commerce that of “holiday shopping” instead of “Christmas shopping,” but that when it came to people losing their jobs, they preferred to describe layoffs as relating to “Christmas.” My instincts have been proven correct during the past three years. So did anything change in 2008? Not that much, but slightly in…
Eleanor Clift: Wright Had 'Prophetic Theology', Rick Warren 'Extremely
Rev. Jeremiah Wright was a voice crying in the wilderness that the mainstream media and middle class America weren't quite ready for and megachurch pastor Rick Warren is an ignorant evangelical rube who isn't totally without hope, given his awareness of AIDS and other favored liberal causes. That's essentially what Eleanor Clift preached to her choir in her December 19 "Capitol Letter" column, "…
Will Media Report Baghdad's First Public Christmas Celebration
An astonishing thing happened in Baghdad on Saturday: Christians, apparently for the first time in the city's history, publicly celebrated Christmas.CNN's Jill Dougherty published an article about this extraordinary event at the network's website Sunday which included a video of her interviewing Iraqis of varied religious beliefs at the scene.However, from what I can tell, this extremely charming…
Dallas News Religion Blogger: Did You Hear the One About the Priest
...who pulled President-elect Obama's books from a Catholic school library? "Hey, at least he didn't burn them!" goes the punchline. Wocka, wocka, wocka!That was Dallas Morning News religion blogger Bruce Tomaso's take on a Missouri Catholic priest's decision to yank Obama's tomes from the shelves of St. John LaLande Catholic School's library (see screencap at right).Tomaso noted that Fr. Ron…
Sally Quinn's Condescending Suggestion to the Faithful
In his December 19 blog post, "You too can be a spiritual dilettante," Get Religion contributor Douglas LeBlanc shared his bemusement with self-admitted atheist Sally Quinn's helpful suggestions to Newsweek/Washington Post's "On Faith" readers about interfaith dialogue. LeBlanc noted that Quinn gave her readers this assignment:Try a new faith (or non-faith) for one day. That exploration can…
