Generalizations about “The Media” are risky because they are so diverse.  However, whether you are inside it or an observer on the outside, you are brain-dead if you don’t have plenty to criticize.
 Much of the press, of course, suffers from pack journalism and pack thinking. There is safety there.  Being a business dictates far more than is realized in what the media takes on. Investigative journalism is noble but costly, and certainly plenty of rascals and rogues run free in their insidious schemes. There are too few watchdogs to sniff them out. …

Church leaders wished they knew why people change churches and what motive they could tap to attract people to their pews and to their membership rolls.  And keep them there.
 They won’t find decisive answers in a worship-pattern study released Thursday by  Phoenix-based Ellison Research. People change churches for sure, but they are not consistent in what sorts of congregations they are drawn to – be it to larger or smaller churches or whether to ones that are more contemporary or more traditional in worship styles.  So outreach and evangelism workers …

  As a one-time church newsletter writer and editor and still a regular contributor to our church newsletter, I am immensely ambivalent about the call to save paper and move to electronic, or on-line, church newsletters. 
The computer is not the cure-all for escalating costs of a paper society. My church is exploring going to an electronic newsletter, and I have misgivings about such a move. 
Clearly, there would be great cost-savings in postage (albeit it already relatively inexpensive because of periodical rates vs. first-class postage). And there is the paper cost, the copier …

The story came and went in March, with seemingly little public discussion.  The Vatican came up with a new list of “seven deadly sins” that fit modern life.   Humankind has come a long, long way from the time of distilling the original set of sins, and it makes all the sense in the world to police misbehavior and actions never anticipated in the early centuries of Christianity.
Like who, back in earlier times, would have fathomed that fouling up the Tiber River in Rome would be a gross indiscretion?
The original seven …

 A reader emailed me this week angry that I would be so disrespectful to call the Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix,  as merely “Olmsted” on second reference in a news story. 
Here’s the comment, which, incidentally, was sent me in all capital letters (something that is always a nuisance to the eye): “I am appalled at your referring to our Most Holy Bishop by last name as editor for religion please show respect for our bishop as you would no doubt show for …

A cynic could look at the American presidential campaign scene and be nauseated by the endless religious subtext. There are endless efforts to keep alive the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy with Sen. Barack Obama. And there is debate whether the Rev. John Hagee’s anti-Catholic commentaries go largely free of media scrutiny and leaves Sen. John McCain unscathed despite their association.
 There’s the rule that clergy cannot advocate for politicians from the pulpit. They can invite politicians to speak, but are not to show a preference.  (Like how often do they invite those …

Fund-raisers can soar, and they can flop. Or flip-flop, as in footwear.    We are 3 ½ weeks away for “National Barefoot Sunday” when people of faith are being literally asked to leave their shoes at the altar at the end of their worship service.
A charity, which is called Soles4Souls, has developed a campaign to “demonstrate God’s love to hurting people across the world with the simple gift of shoes.” Explaining that  more than 300 million children around  the world routinely live barefoot, the organization has a plan get shoes off …

What faith community is not nervous over the downturn in the economy? The surge in the cost of gasoline, for example, causes families to reevaluate travel and whether they may cut down on their long drives to church once, twice or three times a week.
Dare church leaders venture into new programs or building projects while the future remains so uncertain?  Increased food costs drive down what families buy to donate to food banks, not to mention ramifications for ministries to the poor and homeless. Dream projects, staff pay raises and refunding …

  Thursday – May 1 — was National Day of Prayer.  The observance falls on the first Thursday of each May, and it typically is a grassroots project by anyone in any communities to take the initiative to organize an event that might bring people of various faiths together for a period of prayer.  It can be as simple as providing a place where people can gather for supplication. Over the years, as I have covered religion and spirituality in the Valley, I have seen interest in the National Day of Prayer …