There are religion blogs and then there are religion blogs.

The Civil Religion blog is civil, the writing is good and the posts are frequent.

(1) When we were discussing the set-up of this blog, religion reporter Tim Townsend suggested we look at the Washington Post religion blog, On Faith, to see what a religion blog looks like. I found it confusingly laid out and not appealing and said so to Tim. Today I have another reason to stay away. Look at this from the Dallas Morning News blog:

“Sally Quinn, the Washington socialite and journalist, attended Tim Russert’s funeral.

Russert was Catholic. Quinn isn’t. In fact, as far as I can tell, she isn’t demonstrably religious at all, despite being one of the founders of the On Faith blog published by Newsweek and The Washington Post.

She decided to receive Communion at Russert’s funeral Mass.

In some churches, this would be no…

During the Today show’s ongoing remembrance of Tim Russert this morning, Meredith Vieira provided this touching tidbit: “To quote the Lord’s Prayer, Tim’s cup overflowed.”

Tim Russert was indeed a vivacious, larger-than-life personality. So Russert would have likely been the first to mention to Ms. Vieira than she was actually quoting the 23rd Psalm.

I find these sorts of religious missteps more humorous than disheartening. But they do strengthen the best-selling thesis of religious writer/scholar Stephen Prothero, that our culture suffers from a stunning lack of Religious Literacy.

The guy on the street trying to convince you Jesus really once said, “God helps those who help themselves,” is one thing. A national media celebrity misquoting the two most well-known texts in the Bible is another. Nonetheless, my first response when Vieira said what she said was to blurt out in laughter.

In an unrelated note in stream-of-consciousness mode, I have found…