TFN Conference Off to Great Start (8-17-04)

Kudos to Samantha Smoot and her colleagues at the Texas Freedom Network for putting on a great conference.

Dr. Stewart Hoover kicked the conference off with an outstanding presentation on religion and the media. The author of Religion in the News spoke to the subject "The Apocalypse will be Televised: Religion in the Media Age." Most valuable were his suggestions for how moderate and progressive religionists should respond to the media. His first suggestion is that we insist on a separation between religion and government. He contends that religion should have a prophetic, not a collusive relationship with government.

I talked with Dr. Hoover after his presentation. Look for interviews with him and with Samantha Smoot on the "Religious Talk" radio program in the near future.

The highlight of the conference was Helen Thomas' speech. She pulls no punches. Her critique of the failures of journalists over the past two and one half years is unflinching. Her response to a question at the end of her speech was most revealing. When a man lamented that the Republican Party has been the subject of a "right wing religious right" and paused, Helen finished his sentence for him with a word that Mainstream Baptists understand well -- "takeover."