Columbus Dispatch Responds to fundies hate mail

[Ben]

[url="http://www.dispatch.com/news/religion/faith-story.php?story=dispatch/2007/02/09/20070209-H2-01.html"]http://www.dispatch.com/news/religion/fait...0209-H2-01.html[/url]

[quote]COMMENTARY
Faith & Values has neglected some folks, but they’re not Christians
Friday, February 09, 2007
MARK FISHER

Recent articles about Buddhism and Islam in the Faith & Values section have brought accusations from a few readers that The Dispatch has begun promoting these faiths while downplaying Christianity, the dominant religion in central Ohio.

A couple of critics wanted to know why we were wasting ink on these "false" beliefs when Christ is the only path to salvation. Another caller said he was tired of having "that Islam religion … shoved in my face."

I’ve also heard from a few people who praised our explanations of non-Christian faiths. But the critics made me wonder how we actually have been allocating coverage and whether it’s been disproportionate.

To find out, I got a list of all the articles that have appeared on the cover of Faith & Values for the last two years and started tallying them. The results were surprising. The critics are wrong — we haven’t been slighting Christians — but I did find another shortcoming that I’d never suspected.

Because the Census doesn’t ask people about their faith, it’s hard to pin down the religious demographics of this area. Reasonable estimates are made, however, by academic or religious researchers, usually via large surveys.

Using their figures, I conclude that this region is about 80 percent Christian, with the evangelicals leading the pack, followed by the Roman Catholics and then the United Methodists. The nonreligious probably total about 12 percent, followed by Muslims, 3 percent; Jews, 2 percent; and all the rest, 3 percent.

So whom have we been writing about? During the last two years, Faith & Values has had 290 cover stories, of which 183 (63.1 percent) have been about Christianity. Another 39 stories, or 13.4 percent, have discussed multiple faiths, usually including Christianity.

We’ve had 12 cover stories about Islam (4.1 percent) and 11 about Judaism (3.8 percent). Five stories were about Buddhism (1.7 percent).

We published one article each about atheism, Hinduism, Scientology and Shintoism.

We’ve also had 36 stories (12.4 percent) that weren’t about any religion per se but rather addressed general values, such as honesty, good sportsmanship or charity. Not counting these stories, our coverage has at least mentioned Christianity nearly 90 percent of the time.

I don’t think topics in Faith & Values should be strictly proportionate to the religious population. There are lots of good reasons, for example, to devote more than 3 percent of our space to Islam. Many Americans seek a better understanding of this major world faith, which not only is growing fast in our country but also is so important to our foreign policy and national security.

A good, balanced introductory text is Islam: the Straight Path by John L. Esposito, founding director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University. I suggested this book to one of our critics, who said she had no interest in learning about what she called a fake religion.

Although Faith & Values isn’t ignoring Christians, my tally does suggest that we are giving nonreligious people less attention than they deserve. We’re already taking steps to correct that.

Some might argue that the religion section is meant for religious people, just as the Sports section is intended for sports fans. (Because I myself have little interest in sports, I don’t expect that section to cater to me.)

But this analogy is faulty. Nonreligious people have their own codes of ethics and explanations for the meaning of life. Many pursue independent spiritual paths; others are happily secular.

I think these people deserve more coverage in F&V. What do you think?

Mark Fisher is editor of the Faith & Values section. Dispatch researcher Amy Disch contributed to this column.

mfisher@dispatch.com[/quote]

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[Guest Samurai J]

People in this fucking city are C.R.A.Z.Y.