The God Beat: What Journalism Says about Faith and Why It Matters

by Costică Brădățan, Ed Simon

In the wake of the horrific 9/11 terrorist attacks we, as an increasingly secular nation, were reminded that religion is, for good and bad, still significant in the modern world. Alongside this new awareness, religion reporters adopted the tools of so-called New Journalists, reporters of the 1960s and '70s like Truman Capote and Joan Didion who inserted themselves into the stories they covered while borrowing the narrative tool kit of fiction to avail themselves of a deeper truth. At the turn of the millennium, this personal, subjective, voice-driven New Religion Journalism was employed by young writers, willing to scrutinize questions of faith and doubt while taking God-talk seriously. Articles emerged from such journalists as Kelly Baker, Ann Neumann, Patrick Blanchfield, Jeff Kripal, and Meghan O'Gieblyn, characterized by their brash, innovative, daring, and stylistically sophisticated writing and an unprecedented willingness to detail their own interaction with faith (or their lack thereof). The God Beat brings together some of the finest and most representative samples of this emerging genre. By curating and presenting them as part of a meaningful trend, this compellingly edited collection helps us understand how we talk about God in public spaces--and why it matters--in a whole new way.

Genres: Religion

225 pages, Hardcover

Published June 8, 2021

About the author

Costică Brădățan is a Professor of Humanities in the Honors College at Texas Tech University, USA, and an Honorary Research Professor of Philosophy at University of Queensland, Australia. He is the author or editor of several books, and his work has been translated into many languages, including Dutch, German, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Farsi. Bradatan writes regularly for such publications as the New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, Aeon, Dissent, and The New Statesman, and serves as the Religion/Comparative Studies Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books.

Reviews

[Zak Schmoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not what I expected. Now that I reread the Amazon description, I do see where they mention right at the end it is an edited collection. However, when I kind of breezed through the description and made this purchase, I thought this was going to be kind of a genre level overview and examination of the trade of journalism and how journalists write about religion.

Instead, it is a collection of essays from around the Internet and various publications that are examples of New Religion Journalism. This technique is essentially involves telling stories from the inside as a narrative. Objectivity almost entirely goes out the window, and the journalist as narrator is a key figure in the story.

As in any collection of essays, some of them are much better than others. They are well written, and most of them resemble the kind of writing you would find in places like the Atlantic. This is a very theologically liberal read, so I certainly took issue with some of the characterizations the authors made.

Overall, I didn't really understand what kind of book I was getting, but this is an enjoyable read. It is a quality writing, even if I disagree with it, and there are some very interesting pieces within.

[TJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thought this would be an examination of reporting on religion. Instead it was stories on religion