The NYT manages to publish an even less-perceptive report on the Georgia Senate race than The Washington Post. “G.O.P. is Poised to Tighten Grip on Georgia” reads the headline, and that’s about as deep as it gets. Nary a mention of the role played by former Christian Coalition chief Ralph Reed. Reed helmed the Georgia G.O.P. through its 2002 historic conquest of the peach state, a Democratic hold-out since Reconstruction. And Reed’s not just another political hack putting on the piety for public consumption. In fact, he keeps much of his religious agenda quiet these days, in recognition of the fact that he’d become a lightning rod for anti-Christian Right organizing. Reed has since moved on to become Bush’s Southeast chairman, but he left an imprint on Georgia G.O.P. politics, a fact reflected by the Republican primary’s near-exclusive focus on abortion. And yet the Times is covering it as just another horse race, with the subtleties of religion and influence apparently considered too “cultural” for hard news.

The lighter side of Britain’s ban on religious hate-mongering: The U.K.’s proposed legislation to make inciting religious hatred a crime punishable by imprisonment continues to draw criticism from free-speech advocates, including “Mr. Bean” star Rowan Atkinson. Atkinson claims that films lampooning religious figures, like Monty Python’s hit movie “Life of Brian” (about a fictitious neighbor of Jesus Christ who is mistaken for the Messiah) could not be made under the proposed law. Read more of Al Webb’s Washington Times report.

There’s little new in New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof’s tame critique of the Left Behind series, “Jesus and Jihad.” His self-described apprehension in writing the column is noteworthy though. That Kristof feared condemnation for asking whether we should “give intolerance a pass if it is rooted in religious faith,” and felt compelled to justify not treating religion as a “taboo” subject, suggests a media deeply compromised by its attempts to not offend…

“‘The church has adopted the concept that there is something wrong with you if you’ve reached a certain age and you are not married,'” said Heindrich Shirley, pastor of the South Carolina Redemption World Outreach Center. “‘We’ve given singles the idea that if they’re single they are diseased or gay.'” On a subject like “dating advice for single evangelical women,” many readers would be justifiably wary of the cheap laughs and punning that often takes the place of real reporting. The New York Times’s Ginia Bellafante commendably breaks this pattern, reporting on a new spate of evangelical self-help titles with real compassion and interest in the underlying stories. Read more.

Soldiers of the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment perform a sacred duty in a nation blessed by God. Or so says Defence Force Chaplain Fr Allan Ventour. Ucill Cambridge, of the Trinidad and Tobago Express, reports on Ventour’s sermon, but fails to explore the implications for soldiers told, “‘when God tells you what spirit you must have when carrying out your duty, you have to listen,'” or what such a holy mandate has meant for other armies in the past.

NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli sends a letter from Europe, investigating the growing religious disconnect between Europe, which is “increasingly challenging to its religious traditions,” and America: “the most religiously-minded of Western democracies.” While 60% of Americans say religion is important to them, only 21% of Europeans do, prompting the Pope to call for a “re-evangelization of the seat of Catholicism.”