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For many years, I subscribed to a newspaper that had a “Religion” section once a week. The Religion section was location on the last page or two of the “Home and Garden” section. Some weeks there was only one page, with one or two articles. Other weeks, there were two pages. The articles themselves tended to be human interest stories about religion. These minor articles followed pages devoted to helpful hints about redecorating your house or tending to your rose bushes.
In all of the years I subscribed, I thought that this practice by the newspaper spoke volumes about the ongoing confusion about how to deal with religion in a world shaped by conflicts between religious and secular worldviews. The newspaper had solved the problem by treating religion as a minor topic, suitable for mention once a week, in a section of the paper that was not devoted to real “news.”
In fact, day after day, the newspaper published articles throughout the paper that were religious at the core. But because the editors were not willing to bring religious issues to the forefront, they lost the opportunity on a daily basis to reveal how much religion shapes our lives.
In my next post, I’ll refer to the effort by Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of Great Britain, to demonstrate why religion matters in our world.
Dr. Kalinda Rose Stevenson
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