Numbers never tell the whole story–which is why liberal pleas to rely solely on science and facts carry so little weight.

Internet years are like dog years.  Way back in 2003 when The Revealer was founded as a joint project between NYU’s Journalism Department and The Center for Religion and Media, we placed a more traditional emphasis on educating future journalists about how to report about religion: with links to academic and reporting resources, explicit examples of how journalists get religion right and wrong, and by debunking hypocritical or imbalanced, precious or erroneous reporting.  While our emphasis on that aspect of our mission has varied over the past eight years, we’ve always paid close attention to what tools institutions use to school journalists in religion’s means and ways.

For instance: there’s a cool new online course about Islam, created by Washington State University and Poynter News University.  Designed by Lawrence Pintak (who will be speaking at an event co-sponsored by The Center for Religion and Media on October 5th), the course is meant:

as a tool for journalists who want to be accurate in educating their audience about the religion and culture of Islam, Muslim communities in the U.S., and the distinctions between Islam as a political movement and the radical philosophies that inspire militant Islamists.

Smart and necessary!  But that’s not what the Culture and Media Institute (CMI, part of Brent “that’s indecent!” Bozell’s family of non-profits) has to say about the project.

As Adam Sewer of WaPo writes, a new report by The Center for American Progress debunks anti-shari’ah rhetoric. Read the report here. And a clip:

But by defining Sharia itself as the problem, and then asserting the authenticity of only the most extreme interpretations of Sharia, the authors are effectively arguing that the internecine struggle within Islam should be ceded to extremists. They also cast suspi- cion upon all observant Muslims.

It’s important to understand that adopting such a flawed analysis would direct limited resources away from actual threats to the United States and bolster an anti-Muslim nar- rative that Islamist extremist groups find useful in recruiting.

Jesus Greeks!

Of course we don’t endorse primary candidates (Mitt Romney 5.0)!  But if we could…

Jews in the Sheen house!

Reading, writing and the absolute horrors of being in divinity school.

Old evangelical wine in old evangelical wineskins?

Clarence Thomas is the court.

The Archbishop of Canterbury designates a Pakistani martyr.

Alabama Rep on Shari’ah:  I don’t know what it is but I’m gonna ban it.

To the victim goes the forgiveness.

And today’s must-read is Tim Nafziger’s fantastic romp through Mennonite “institutions and bureaucracy” at Young Anabaptist Radicals, parts one and two.  (Read Tim’s columns at The Mennonite here.)

In a recent interview Egyptian-born journalist Mona Eltahawy tells Bill Maher (notoriously anti-religion, Maher so often perfectly demonstrates the confounding problem the left has with articulating religious tolerance) that Egypt has less chance of becoming a theocracy than is assumed in U.S. commentary.

MoJo‘s Tim Murphy does the Shari’ah in America round-up so we don’t have to.

Elissa Lerner: Have you been losing sleep over the crippling anxiety that Islamic law might one day trump Constitutional law? Fear not – Oklahoma is on the case! “Save Our State” question 755 banning shari’a law from the Sooner State passed with a whopping 70% of the vote on Tuesday. In a “pre-emptive strike” according to the proposition’s sponsor Rex Duncan, Oklahoma is now proudly the first state in the union to prevent courts from considering shari’a in reaching decisions. Please. Like they would in the first place. Oklahoma’s Muslim community hovers somewhere between 0 and .1% of the population.

by Joshua M. Z. Stanton

When John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960, fear-mongers raised the specter of his dual loyalty. Would he really serve American interests or merely be a pawn for the Vatican? After all, he was a Catholic. Church doctrine, it was whispered, could co-opt the person designated to uphold America’s laws and Constitution.

by Najam Haider

This article is part of an ongoing series that will examine what Shari’ah is, how the media often get it wrong, and how it’s being used to create fear of Islam and Muslims and to justify continued military defense of “American values.”

Got a strong hatred for a faith other than your own?  Forget finding tolerance; find a book agent!  Richard Bartholomew writes today that a new book, Islam is of the Devil, has hit the shelves.  Its opportunistic author, Terry Jones, is pastor of Dove World Outreach in Florida.  Yes, the same church that sponsored, “Burn a Koran Day” last month.  (Read Daniel Schultz’ post for The Revealer on the kind of evangelism that Jones and his church are practicing.)  You could say that Jones knows his audience and has worked to build a platform for selling the book.  The mystery is why they’re buying it.  For some answers, follow our series on Shari’ah here.

Yesterday, plans to build a Muslim religious center near Ground Zero were approved. Later in the day, Mayor Bloomberg spoke about the center with emotional praise. Here’s a smattering of news stories from around the web: including those that approve of the “mosque” so that “we” can, in part, keep our “enemies” closer and help them to become good Americans, Elizabeth Wurtzle at the Daily Beast; Mark Bergen at Religion Dispatches reviews how opposition to the center developed; MSNBC on Pat Robertson’s plans to oppose the approval; Welton Gaddy at WashPo’s On Faith blog asks why, after so many calls for “moderate” voices to counter Muslim extremism, an opportunity to support such a voice is made controversial; WSJ’s Dorothy Rabinowitz gets her hate on cause we’re Americans, not “insufficiently enlightened” liberals; Yahoo! gives a brief profile of Feisal Abdul Rauf, the man behind the center; Time’s Amy Sullivan says the controversy proves there is a new wave of intolerance.