[Mrs. Don-o]

Two-minute course in the proper interpretation of religion news:

1.Get deep into your "Hermeneutic of Suspicion" mode.

2. Immediately, if not sooner, put a big ol' set of parentheses, followed by a question mark, around these elements:

• the headline,
• the picture captions, and
• the lede.

That's where the most damaging spin and bias is going to be.

3. Remember that even the best journos are rushing to make a deadline and often get stuff wrong through sheer haste and inadvertence.

4. "Stuff" includes botched translation from the Italian original, omitted key portions of the quote, ignored context, and hashed theology.

5. I actually once read in a newspaper account that the book being read from the church lectern was the "Axe of the Apostles."

6. The deeply-missed Chuck Colson once stressed that we need to be "Salt and Light" (a well-known Jesusy phrase) and was misquoted as saying we need to "assault the light" (!)

7. When nearing total panic or bafflement, get the straight scoop from the wonderful GET RELIGION blog, which specializes in analyzing the MSM spin, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/getreligion/

Now go forth and untangle that spaghetti!

[paladinan]

:) Milady, you are one of my heroes!

(I’m still praying for your health intentions, by the way!)

[SumProVita]

Lol! Excellent post!

;-)

[GreyFriar]

Yea. Verily.

Marantha

[Sun]

“..the headline..”

I’m sooooo disappointed some people think the HEADLINE that the liberal media puts on an article is what the Pope said.

You would think that FReepers especially, would know better since they’ve seen what LMSM does to conservative politicians.