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Charles J. Chaput: Religion, Journalism, and the New American Orthodoxy

By Alliance Alert

Public Discourse has the text of an address by Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver to the Religion Newswriters Association: "In practice?at least in the eyes of ordinary people I hear from every week?a new body of ideas seems to shape the limits of acceptable thought in American public life. This new orthodoxy seems to influence the selection of religious news and how that news gets presented. It seems to frame which opinions are appropriate and which ones won?t be heard. And it seems to guide the historical narrative that media present to their audiences. At its core, it has a set of assumptions about the nature of human life, the purpose of government, and the proper role of religion in the lives of individuals and in society that veers away from past American habits of thought. This new thinking seems to presume a society much more secular and much less religious than anything in America?s past or anything warranted by present facts; a society where people are free to worship and believe whatever they want, so long as they don?t intrude their religious idiosyncrasies on government, the economy, or culture."

Full post as published by Constitutionally Correct on September 27, 2010 (boomark / email).