Monday, November 19, 2007

Sally Quinn and Religion

John Podhoretz skewers Sally Quinn's essay in celebration of the first anniversary of On Faith, a joint effort by Newsweek and the Washington Post to discuss religious issues. I hadn't know that the site existed, but it clearly will be good for some laughs. Quinn discusses her curiosity about faith:
Finally in March I took a trip around the world to study the Great Faiths. It was a private tour and we started in Rome. From there we went to Jerusalem in Israel and Bethlehem in Palestine, Kyoto, Japan; Chengdu, China; Lhasa, Tibet; Varanasi, New Delhi and Amritsar in India; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Cairo, Egypt; Armenia; and Istanbul, Turkey. When I told my friend, “On Faith” panelist and religion scholar Elaine Pagels, about the trip she asked how long I had spent. “Three weeks ‘”I replied.
I will note that is 12 religious destinations in 21 days. This seems to sum up the understanding of religion by Washington media types. Podhoretz is more clever than I, and comments:
It is like Augustine’s Confessions, if Augustine’s Confessions had been written by a combination of Helen Gurley Brown and Britney Spears.
Did I mention that she is the editor of this site?

Just for fun, there is also this comment by Arlo, under the heading You can worship anything you want at the Guthrie Center
“If there is a supreme being and they put all this together, what a cool thing."
The country will not right itself until my generation has died off.

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