Karl Rove, the agnostic

Bill Moyers delivers an apt farewell to Karl Rove here, and The Rascal resurrects an item offered here three months ago about Rove lacking any religious faith (which, by the way, doesn't necessarily make him a bad guy).

Do today's colleges secularize students?

It's an article of faith (so to speak) among conservatives that the secular humanists who dominate the faculties at colleges and universities these days are turning the students away from religion.

But the truth of the matter, as Kevin Drum notes here, is something else.

Why do the media give short shrift to religion?

One of the great failings of the mainstream news media in America is their sparse and superficial coverage of religion.

Religion is an important factor in the lives of millions of Americans, but you wouldn't know it from the little ink and air-time it gets from the secular media.

Most daily newspapers have got whole departments full of reporters and editors who deal with nothing but sports, while only one staffer, if any, is assigned to the religion beat -- and then, usually on a part-time basis.

You would think that the media, if only in their own economic self-interest, would provide more coverage of the faith-based communities in their circulation areas. I'm talking about objective and comprehensive coverage that goes beyond the handouts issued by houses of worship, and beyond stories about the conspicuous political wrangles over abortion, school prayer and embryonic stem-cell research.

There's a whole world of religious trends, theological controversies and intra-denominational goings-on out there, but the mainstream media pay most of them no attention at all. What a shame. What a missed opportunity.

I've always felt that a weekly magazine devoted to objective coverage of religion in America would be wildly popular and thus greatly profitable. You could call it ReligionWeek or some such thing. It probably would be denounced in some quarters and might regularly find itself embroiled in heated controversy, but that's all right. People would read it.

Yes, we've already got countless religious publications and TV and radio programs, but they're all preaching to their respective choirs. There's no place for people to go for detached coverage of the real news in religion.

This subject comes to mind with the release this week of a new study by Media Matters for America, which shows that the secular news media give an unbalanced picture of religion by devoting too much time and space to the views of religious conservatives. Read it. It's an eye-opener.

Speaking of religion...

For a few laughs, check out this story about "The Moron Magnet."

Sunday blasphemy

George Carlin discusses religion in this video. (Warning --or promise, depending on your tastes: Lots of profane language.)