Is covering religion a fad?

…or are mainstream media finally coming to a new awareness of how important it is, and giving it due respect?

Last week CNN devoted nearly five days of prime time broadcasts to discuss religion in the United States. Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals and Jews each had some representation. By my count there were at least five different specials, repeated strategically during the holiday weekend. This network has not historically had a pro-evangelical editorial bent. Therefore, many members of the faith community have felt that FOX or other networks were more supportive of their values.

CNN’s most recent religious specials mark a departure from their typical modus operandi. Evangelicals often expect poor treatment and stereotyping from the liberal press. These programs, however, seemed extremely even handed and objective in their journalistic style and approach. At times they even seemed faith affirming and inspirational. Suffice it to say, their approach to the Easter holiday season may yield many new viewers for their news programs.

Alas, that has a lot to do with covering religion right now. But as long as they’re on it, at least it looks like they’re getting more conscientious about that coverage. I caught the specials on Fox and CNN, and both were very interesting and done well.

I really believe that the work CNN did this past week was exemplary. They did a great job at presenting classic positions as contrasted with new societal questions. The only thing that (Anderson) Cooper and company failed to pick up on last week is that a generation of pioneer evangelical leaders are about to pass from the scene. Therefore, the entire Christian right movement is in transition. The pioneer patriarchs of the moral majority are all in their seventies or eighties. When these influential giants step down in the next few years, a new generation of technically -savvy, policy geeks with the Bible in one hand and a laptop in the other, will ascend into even greater authority than their predecessors.

The Dobsons, Falwells, Kennedys, Weyrichs, and Robertsons of our day have spent their entire public careers fighting the moral chaos of our culture. Through the power of prayer and biblical faith they have risen from obscurity to national fame and then from fame to national influence.

And that’s precisely the key, embedded in this story, to understanding the growing force religion has become in America. This is about a lot more than doing Christian stories during Holy Week. It’s about the shifting intentions of a pack of media elites trying to get religion, one way or the other. We’re just beyond that turning point when religion and culture and politics collided with a jolt, to this new place where they’re enjoined in some way.

Once fearful of the religious right, the liberal media now wants to frame the religious debate in the nation. Further, many of them feel empowered to complain about the historic, policy agenda of evangelicals. Only time will tell if the producers of these programs are beginning to have a real spiritual awakening. For all we know, both liberal television and print outlets may simply be attempting to play a sophisticated game of divide and conquer. In light of the strange realignment of media voices, the Trojan horse story of old offers a clear lesson – sometimes gifts from old enemies can be “problematic.”

I think there’s plenty of reason for skepticism of the motives behind all this attention to religion. But still, there’s….all this attention to religion. And some of the technically-savvy policy geeks have more than a Bible and a laptop on hand. Some of the best and brightest also have microphones, cameras and political campaigns.