Anyway, I was reminded of that by this item from Washingtonian magazine, in which the WaPo's Sally "Mrs. Ben Bradlee" Quinn explains her latest gig: blogging about religion on Newsweek.com:
“I’ve been an atheist all my life,” she says. “Jon convinced me not to use that word. He said I was defining myself negatively.
“So I don’t call myself anything,” she says. “A seeker, perhaps.”
Quinn was casting about for her next move when she sought guidance from a higher authority.
“I had been interested for a couple of years in religion and how it affects policy,” she says. “I was thinking of writing a book about religion in Washington.”
Why not religion online? “I described my idea to Don Graham,” Quinn says. “He thought it was a great idea.”
She then told Graham: “I don’t know anything about religion.”
He said: “I want you to do it.”
The more things change...
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Just so long as they don't hire a journalism major. (Like secondary ed., another completely unneccesary inovation of the 20th century academic industry).
Franz, agreed. And my degree is in journalism.
You are right, David. I was posting in a hurry and didn't bother to complete my thought.
What I was driving at was something like this: are those who have expertise on religion necessarily going to be the best at explaining religion to the unchurched?
The unchurched don't seem to "get religion" (or perhaps they get it too well and don't want anything to do with it) and I'm sure there are plenty of excellent religion columnists and essayists out there.
Perhaps someone without expertise on religion might bring a fresh approach that would appeal to the unchurched.
Like secondary ed., another completely unneccesary inovation of the 20th century academic industry) Sort of like the "Global Warming Scientist"...
I am christian and I dont have a degree in writing but I am
a well skilled young poet and I am 18 gonna be 19 next month
and I would like to present some well written religion poetry for you
so just email me or go to myspace.com to find me
my myspace is www.myspace.com/poetry4desire
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