The First Update

The first principle of reporting, even secondhand reporting as this Weekly Update seeks to do, is choosing what to—and maybe even more importantly what not to—report. That is to say, it is not simply the case that there are manifestly important things to comment on that happen every day, nor that there are two sides to five or six particular stories that demand our attention.

Our hope with Prime Matters is to demonstrate effectively how one can view the world in a comprehensively Christian way, and then how current phenomena fit into that fundamental “imaginative vision.” What we consider important and what we fight about in our nation on a daily basis might not be the most important issues, and it isn't necessarily the case that each issue is about taking sides. But the current secular narrative is such that we can't hope to arrive at helpful solutions because the questions themselves are phrased incorrectly.

We could phrase our approach to the news as keeping things in proportion, not distortion.

Political questions tend to dominate our media and our minds, and it seems that our elections (and especially our national election, and even more so our presidential election) are the most important public realities. For instance, in the week that was, the main national story was a political riot and the jeopardy of the American transfer of power. As unfortunate as this was, here we see a well laid out history of violence around our electoral process.

Even more striking was the religious language applied to a decidedly secular institution. American Civil Religion has always tempted Christians to ascribe divine and religious qualities to worldly institutions. The riot at the Capitol elicited some strong statements of religious civil language:

We will also take a look at events going on in the Church on earth. One hope is that we see Christianity as larger than the United States: for instance, practicing the faith in Nigeria is a matter of life and death, as seen in a local bishop’s kidnapping and release.

An instance can be found here of an informative, intelligent, and reasoned approach to current events in the Church, in this case on the new approval of female lectors and acolytes.

Lastly, we hope to point out interesting cultural notes, like this article that examines Turkey’s classification of old Byzantine church buildings as mosques or museums. This case study is a fascinating occasion for one who is seeking to understand the world through Christian eyes, with a formerly Christian church-turned-museum-turned-mosque. In fact, it could be asked, “Is it more desirable for a formerly Christian church to be a museum or a mosque?”