a review of religion and media
Abby Ohlheiser: In the collective gasp that followed the shooting in Tucson on Saturday, the story of the ongoing voting on a referendum for southern independence in Sudan was all but lost. We’re still catching up at The Revealer secret headquarters ourselves. Consensus in the coverage seems to be that the southern third of Sudan, which is mostly Christian and Animist, will vote for secession from the northern part of the country, which has a Muslim majority. Continue Reading →
A case of mistaken identity! An Arizona congregation of 800 has been saving for years to build a new house of worship. Now that the architectural structure is under way, they’re under attack from local residents because, well, it’s got a dome. And domes are Muslim, right? And Muslims are bad and dangerous, right? The non-denominational congregation of the Light of the World church has had to hang a sign on their rising structure, visible from Interstate 10 in Phoenix, that declares their faith as Christian. While the reporting around this is humorous on the surface — I picked it up from Gawker — the larger questions of why and how a Muslim house of worship would be bad are still not broadly addressed. Instead local news station KPNX highlights the church’s pronouncement, “We’re not Muslim, we’re Christian” and the person interviewed to decry Islamophobia is a young woman in a head scarf. So much for religious tolerance and freedom. Continue Reading →