InkTank

Tourists or not?

This Good Friday while walking around downtown DC, I crossed paths with a few Roman Centurions, a falsely bloodied man shouldering a cross and two women in mourning apparel. These were demonstrators, reenacting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I thought, "Well, this is a rather unique way to share the story of Christ's death."

Later, I returned home and while reading the news online, I crossed electronic paths with an even odder demonstration of the crucifixion. Many mainstream news outlets reported a long-time tradition that took place today in Cutud, Phillippines.

For over fifty years, this town has held a demonstration that allows select citizens to publicly have their backs whipped or be voluntarily nailed to a cross all for the purpose of showing their devotion to Christ.

The Catholic Church condemned this practice and even accused the town of commercializing the demonstration. An AFP newswire article said:

District tourism officer Ching Pangilinan denied church charges of commercilisation, saying local authorities had an obligation to manage the event to prevent tourists from mobbing the place or being robbed.

But, even though the tourism officer denied charges of commercializaition, the press still seemed intent on labeling the fake crucifixion onlookers, "tourists."

Could this be that the press misunderstood the cultural tradition at hand?

The AFP article further called this event a "spectacle," saying:

In the small farming town of Cutud, a couple of hours' drive north of Manila, thousands of tourists gathered to watch what has over the years become the biggest and bloodiest Good Friday spectacle.

To me, using the word "spectacle" is insinuating that this was some kind of show, rather than a devout religious act of penitance.

Another day for innacurate pope coverage

Once again, a well-meaning reporter failed to do some basic research on religion--specifically, Catholicism--and the article suffered as a result. Even from the title of the Huffington Post article "John Paul II's Living Will," it is a sign that author Jon M. Sweeney did not do his research properly.

Pope John Paul II did not have a living will. But more on that later on. 

The troubles in this article begin with its lede:

"It is amazing how quickly the beloved Pope John Paul II seems to have faded from public memory. Six years after his death (on April 2, 2005), it is difficult to find many people talking about his life and legacy anymore."

Since a lede is supposed to tell you something about the story,  it would make sense to think that this article would discuss the lack of recent coverage about the deceased pontiff. This does not connect with the title involving a living will.

The actual innacuracies of the story's coverage begin soon after:

" [John Paul II's] official beatification is coming next. It could happen any day now."

Embarrassingly for the article's author, it was back in January that the Vatican released the date of John Paul II's beatification--which will include him being referred to as "Blessed John Paul II"--will be May 1, 2011.

After blundering in that regard, the article tries to explain how Pope John Paul II's cause for canonization is happening. Interestingly enough, it manages to stay just short of definite error when outlining the circumstances.

"Saintly miracles almost always come about as a result of prayers made to the candidate after his or her death. If a healing or some other special result happens, it is said that the candidate has interceded to God in heaven for the favorable response."

Perhaps the author did not phrase this in the most elegant way, in contrast to the National Catholic Register's excellent story on the matter. But he is not technically incorrect: he says that Catholics pray for intercession of the deceased person, as opposed to praying to him directly.

An Unlikely Miracle

The longer I’ve been here, the more I’ve recognized the importance of coming to D.C. with an open mind. While in a program like Washington Journalism Center, going to different parts of town is inevitable. Saturday I experienced two very opposite parts of town in a matter of hours, and I learned things in places I didn't necessarily expect to.

Bus Day.

Around 10 a.m., a group of six of us from WJC and ASP left the Dellenback for Anacostia—one of the most impoverished areas of the city.  The intersection where we got off the bus was a bit desolate on the cloudy, chilly morning. Our first stop was a Bethel Christian Fellowship, a small church near our bus stop. The door was unlocked, so we walked inside. There was a group of African-American children near the stage, and scattered adults in the chairs. Everyone turned to look at us.

Another story on why the Tea Party sucks

Most of the stories I have read on the Tea Party movement are relentless - and that is entirely what I expect on the editorial pages. But the same sentiment has found its way to the news page as well.

In a Washington Post article from Sunday, Oct. 24 the paper presented findings after what seemed to be a lengthy investigation on the Tea Party as a whole. The Post attempted to contact every Tea Party "group" and, in essence, verify their existence. After making sure they did actually exist, the Post then asked them questions about their chief concerns - which of course included their thoughts about the president's race and religion, since that is all the Tea Party really cares about.

Maybe I'm just a bit too conventional for these modern day "call out the stupid group (any conservative group, of course) and give them grief" journalists and so I'm being too harsh, but I just think Tea Party coverage is ridiculously biased. 

My favorite parts of the article are the quotes by one of the most uneducated person in the group - and the article then acts as though that is a decent representation from the group as a whole. Obviously, all Tea Party members hate Obama because he’s black and they, of course, think he is a Muslim....and a socialist. Or at least the Post would let you think so.

How should I respond to the poor?

I was told that as students here at the Washington Journalism Center we were going to talk about this as a group at some point, but I figured I might as well get the thoughts rolling right now.

If you spend any time at all walking the streets of DC, chances are that someone has asked you for money. Maybe it’s the skinny old man in front of 7 Eleven, the old woman at Union Station who needs money for a bus fare, or the guy on the corner of 12th and F St. with nothing but a sleeping bag and a cardboard sign. In any case, it happens quite often.

I don't think there's one absolutely right blanket answer that we can give and be done with it. Poverty is much more complex than that. I mean, there’s a whole publication (Street Sense) devoted to poverty and homeless issues just in DC, not to mention the countless worldwide mission agencies, rescue missions, relief efforts, books, and a lot of Bible passages.

Perhaps I’ll get to a systematic approach to poverty later. For now, consider two recent situations I encountered.

Last week, I was walking to the gym after a long day at my internship. A heavyset black man with shoulder length dreadlocks, no older than his thirties, was standing on the street corner next to the gym asked me if I could spare some change. Sick with a cold and not in the best of moods, I brushed him off and went in to work out. When I came out he was still there, and he called out to me again. A flare of compassion, or perhaps pity, at his persistency stopped me from brushing him off again. As I started to reach for my wallet, I asked him what he was going to use the money for.

“Um, to get some beer,” he said sheepishly.

His response startled me. I appreciated his honesty and even felt some pity at the sight of his pleading face, but it didn’t help his case.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t think that’s something I want to help you with.”

I started to turn away, but in a last ditch attempt, he pointed to my water bottle.

“Is that wine?”

“No it’s cranberry juice,” I said.

And that was the end of it—an easy decision on my part. I quietly congratulated myself on the discernment and wisdom I had shown in giving to—or rather, not giving and therefore not hurting—the poor.

Well, you know what happens when you assume...

I feel like you would have to be living under a rock to not know the Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, was a Muslim. In fact, I am pretty sure I knew Hasan was a Muslim before the final death count. Between twitter feeds, blogs, and hard news articles, Hasan's religion seems to be the only area of focus to determine why a Army Major would do this. Yet one New York Times article, "Obama Offers Sympathy and Urges No 'Jump to Conclusions'" caught my eye as something different. Here's the lede...

Check out the brightside of life

If you want to start your week out right, then I highly suggest Capitol Q Texan BBQ in Chinatown. 

My week began Sunday, when my morning yoga plan was ruined because of a suicide on the metro route.  This really wasn't the best way to start my morning, not only because someone had committed suicide, but because I then felt completely unproductive and guilty for not attending church that morning.  But later that day, I attended Grace Presbyterian Church of Washington, DC, and it was a little more traditional than I had expected.  I'm glad I went, but it was definitely out of my comfort zone.  I felt like my day had been completely wasted--what a way to start a very important week. 

After church, a group of friends and I received an invitation to dinner at Capitol Q Texan BBQ.  I thought to myself, "I really don't have the money, but maybe a good dinner will cheer me up."

The Bigger Picture

Amidst our stressful, fast-paced lives, many Americans can become too busy to have quiet time with God, notice the beggar on the street or give a moment of our time to someone in need of support. Many times we get caught up in prosperity gospels and find out selves searching for so many individual, fortune-cookie sermons that we fail to realize God’s plan for the universe does not revolve around us. “It’s not about you."

Sometimes God explains this to us in a calm, quite voice, other times he delivers his message with a megaphone and a bulldozer. However, both are as necessary as the air we breathe. I can say this from experience. I was recently uprooted from old ideologies and beliefs that left me fruitless and in spiritual drought, and brought to understand the only way to live in a world that is mostly dead.

About two months ago, I decided to leave my rural town in Tennessee and all of the joys associated with the summer: good times on the river, trips to Florida and family fun and fireworks on the Fourth of July, all for a life on the ranch.

What if Starbucks operated like an evangelical Megachurch?

The Role of Islam in Popular Media

Reviews: Essay, “Local Contexts of Islamism in Popular Media,” “Reporting Islam,” and “Muslims and the News Media.”

This post will be a review of the three different works I’ve sampled in the past two weeks. All of them are so interrelated that it makes sense to summarize them together.

“Local Contexts of Islamism in Popular Media”

In this essay, Lila Abu-Lughod talks about the degree to which Egyptian television serials in the past two decades have shaped Egyptian perceptions of Islamism, the piety movement. She notes that Egyptian television serials work differently from other nations. Egyptian serials run day-after-day for a maximum of 30 episodes and then they’re finished. And often these serials run through the nation’s religious authority, al-Azhar. She notes that in the early 90s, there were few depictions of Islam (or Islamism) in television serials.

“All that viewers could see were people for whom religion was taken for granted as part of their identity and that sometimes offered solace in times of personal trouble. Piety was seen only among the elderly” (Abu-Lughod 8).